Under former President Bill Clinton, a 1997 law passed implementing the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), supplying about 9 million American children with the opportunity of low-cost health insurance. Failure to reauthorize the program by the end of the 2017 federal fiscal year, September 30, has caused a decrease in funding for CHIP, that will eventually run out in some states.

According to The Washington Post, CHIP can be credited with the percentage lowering of uninsured children from 14% to 4.5% since its start. The failure of Congress to pass legislation to continue funding for CHIP, could result in thousands of school age children losing abilities to visit doctors for illnesses, immunizations, routine checkups and other health services.

The end of CHIP will result not from direct appeals to kill the program, but from lack of action on the Congress and Senate’s part. CHIP requires tri-annual budget renewal to effectively operate. The issue arose as members of Congress debated ways in which to fund the estimated $15 billion program.

CHIP runs on a state-by-state basis, each state receiving individual funds for the program to operate within it. Despite not being renewed, states may continue to run the program by using funds allocated from previous years. Even so, three states and the District of Columbia were expected to run out of funding for CHIP by December 2017. Failure to provide funding by March 2018 will cause over half of states to run out their CHIP budgets by the end of the 2018 fiscal year.

According to The Washington Post, an amendment in a stopgap spending bill passed by President Trump in early December will allow The Department of Health and Human Services to internally shift funding to provide for states who run out. This works as only a temporary budget fix and it is unclear whether the split congress will be able to negotiate a budget. Without allocation of the proper funds, a total of 14 states have established a plan to phase out the children on their CHIP programs.

According to Benefit.Gov, the Maryland Children’s Health Program (MCHP) supplies “full health benefits for children up to age 19, and pregnant women of any age” as long as they meet certain income requirements. The maximum income level for a family of four is $60,750. Maryland is projected to run out of its program funding by June of 2018 and with it will go the healthcare benefits given to the over 137, 592 Maryland kids alone.