Utah senator politicized bill that provides insurance to kids. Now his state is the first casualty.

Funding for the Children Health Insurance Program (CHIP), which covers 8.9 million children, expires Saturday because lawmakers were too busy trying to repeal-and-replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

CHIP provides low-cost health insurance to children in families that earn too much money to qualify for Medicaid. Enacted in 1997, CHIP is a companion program to Medicaid, where states had the option to set up an independent CHIP program or extend Medicaid eligibility to children up t...