SALT LAKE CITY — Providers, advocates and state health leaders met with Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, at Primary Children's Outpatient Services Wednesday to celebrate the renewal of the Children's Health Insurance Program funding for another 10 years and to recognize the senator for his efforts supporting it.

"(The program) provides a crucial lifeline for families working hard and still struggling to make ends meet," said Jessie Mandle, senior health policy analyst for Voices for Utah Children, a nonprofit advocacy organization. "No child should have to go without insurance. We are making significant progress toward that goal."

Mandle, speaking to a room of decision-makers that included Hatch, Utah Department of Health Executive Director Dr. Joseph Miner and Primary Children's Hospital CEO Katy Welkie, praised Hatch's "extraordinary work" in founding the Children's Health Insurance Program and working to ensure broad support of it over the past two decades.

"The rate of child un-insurance is lower in Utah and in the U.S. than it has ever been because of … his dedication to children's well-being throughout his career," Mandle said.

The Children's Health Insurance Program — called CHIP for short — provides federally funded health insurance for people 18 and younger living in low to modest income households that earn too much to qualify for Medicaid. In order to be eligible, the young person's household must earn less than 200 percent of the federal poverty level.

Almost 19,000 children are insured through CHIP in Utah, according to data kept by the state. Nationwide, about 8.9 million youth have CHIP health insurance, per health care policy think tank Kaiser Family Foundation.

As recently as just after the calendar turned to 2018, the consensus in Utah about the future of CHIP was not nearly as certain.

Ongoing money for CHIP expired at the end of September last year. The lapse caused mounting anxiety among state officials throughout the country when no new funding was agreed upon by Congress in the ensuing months.

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"You can begin to imagine the wild roller-coaster ride over the last several months," said Jeff Nelson, the director of the CHIP program in Utah, recounting his meetings with other CHIP directors around the country last fall. "We had discussions about, how do you shut down CHIP, how do you notify families about that?"

"It was a gloomy atmosphere," Nelson said. "I didn't want to be (Utah's) last CHIP director."

Additionally, a CHIP funding renewal proposal originating in the U.S. House late last year didn't enjoy the overwhelming bipartisan support that is typical for the program, thanks to strong disagreements about how to pay for it.

The uncertainty caused some demonstrations by activists and strong words from Utah families with CHIP-enrolled children warning Utah's congressional delegation not to treat the program as "a little pawn" in larger political negotiations.

Congress passed a measure in late December that included provisions to fund CHIP through the end of March, and a pair of bills passed in January and February ultimately extended the program's funds through 2027.

"This wasn't easy. It took a lot of pushing and pulling," Hatch said Wednesday. "But in the end we made it and we made made smart policy changes to put CHIP on stable footing."

The extension is the longest in CHIP's history, according to Hatch, who first authored the program in the late 1990s along with the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass.

"CHIP began as a passion project that soon became one of the greatest bipartisan success stories in modern medicine," Hatch told those gathered Wednesday.

Since its inception, CHIP has insured more than 250,000 children in Utah in total, according to Nelson.

Welkie thanked Hatch, saying "it's pretty rare to find a politician who has dedicated their life and political career" to policies benefitting children since young people cannot vote and their collective needs often go unheard.

Welkie told the Deseret News that for uninsured low-income families, a child's sickness or accident can mean parents must decide whether to "spend money on food or spend money on health care."

Delaying care can lead to children having more serious, long-term illnesses that cause parents to stay home from work and lose income, she said, which in turn makes it even more difficult to pay for health care in the future.

"It's really a vicious cycle," Welkie said.

She added, "If you want that family to stay working and keep them healthy, you want a program like CHIP."

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