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Health

Healthcare Reauthorization Priorities. The Children's Health Insurance Plan (CHIP) will expire and needs to be reauthorized in 2017. CHIP is a federal and state partnership program which provides health coverage to an estimated 8.9 million low-income children. In 2015, President Obama signed the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act which extended CHIP for an additional two years; without an extension of the program in 2017 the program will exhaust its funding and states will be required to continue the children's coverage through Medicaid until 2019, due to the ACA's maintenance of effort (MOE) provision unless the ACA is repealed. The reauthorization process will create an opportunity to consider additional policy changes including changes to the CHIP and Medicaid programs.

The ACA also created a funding stream for community health centers. In 2015, a bipartisan vote in Congress extended the Community Health Center Fund by an additional two years (FY 2016 and FY 2017). It is likely that lawmakers will push to extend funding of community health centers into future years beyond 2017.

Chronic Care. In late October, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Hatch and Ranking Member Wyden along with Senators Johnny Isakson (R-GA) and Mark Warner (D-VA), co-chairs of the Finance Committee Chronic Care Working Group, released a discussion draft with proposals to improve health outcomes for Medicare beneficiaries living with chronic conditions. Potential Senate legislative action on the discussion draft is possible in the lame duck session, but it is also possible the bill will be taken up in the next Congress.

EY

18 | Election 2016

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