Year-End Health Care Bill Still in the Works

Federal Health Care Reform

It now appears any year-end Senate health care bill will include funding for the Children's Health Insurance Program, several expiring Medicare programs, the ACA cost-sharing reduction subsidies, and delays of a number of ACA taxes.  The bill will likely extend the current moratoriums for the ACA's health insurance tax and the medical device tax, and possibly the Cadillac tax, but that is less certain at this point.  However, before Congress can get to any year-end health care bill it must finish tax reform and get past a potential government shutdown on December 9.  Democrat demands to address DACA in a year-end bill further complicate the situation.  A number of sources expect Congress to enact a short-term continuing resolution next week that would last until December 22 in order to give members more time to complete their work on the health care bill before several states run out of CHIP funding early next year.  Colorado has already notified residents the state's CHIP program will shut down in February 2018 if Congress doesn't act to renew funding by then.