‘They came to school freaking out’: CHIP parents wait anxiously for federal action

The family liaison at Goldrick Elementary School, Mary Grace, said families came to her office last week “freaking out.” A handful of parents showed her a letter from the state. It read: If Congress does not renew federal funding, Child Health Plan Plus will end on January 31, 2018.

Some students at Goldrick in Colorado receive health insurance through CHP+ or the state’s Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). A majority of students at the Southwest Denv...

The Senate tax bill will kill about 15,000 people every year

Appearing on CNBC Monday, Harvard economist and former Obama and Clinton administration official Larry Summers warned that if the Senate tax bill becomes law, about 10,000 people will die every year who otherwise would have lived. If anything, his estimate isn’t pessimistic enough.

The reason why is that the bill repeals the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate, an unpopular but necessary provision that stabilizes insurance markets and wards off something known as an...

Hatch claims poor people don’t deserve government help because “they won’t help themselves”

Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) is defending a children’s health care program he helped create, but if the federal deficit balloons by at least $1 trillion as predicted under the Republican tax plan he’s authored and shepherded through the Senate, programs for the elderly and the poor will likely take a hit.    

While praising the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) and indicating the program will survive, Hatch nonetheless said last Thursday, shortly before before the Sen...