March 20, 2015 The Honorable John Boehner Office of the Speaker H-232, The Capitol Washington, DC 20515 The Honorable Nancy Pelosi Office of the Democratic Leader H-204, The Capitol Washington, DC 20515 Dear Speaker Boehner and Leader Pelosi, On behalf of Families USA, a non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to the achievement of affordable, high-quality health care for all Americans, I want to extend my appreciation to both of you for including a clean extension of key programs that enable low-income people to get needed health care in your Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) and health care “extenders” package. The Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), the Medicare Qualified Individual program (QI), and Transitional Medical Assistance in Medicaid (TMA) are all essential health insurance coverage supports for low- and moderate-income people. CHIP – an essential program that provides health coverage to children in working, low- and moderate-income families – is currently authorized through fiscal year 2019, although its funding was only allotted through fiscal year 2015. While we would prefer a four-year extension of CHIP to align the program’s funding with its authorization, we applaud your quick, timely, and bipartisan efforts to cleanly extend funding for the program. Although funding for CHIP does not expire until September, it is imperative to enact a funding extension very soon. Over the past several months, the overwhelming majority of Governors have requested Congress to act quickly to continue funding for the program. States are already developing their budgets for FY 2016 and, if they are to continue to operate their programs without interruption, they must be assured federal support for the program will continue beyond 2015. Thanks significantly to CHIP, we’ve made enormous gains in children’s health coverage over the past two decades. CHIP, which was enacted with, and continues to enjoy, broad bipartisan support, has played a key role in reducing the number of uninsured children by more than 50 percent. The program provides affordable, high-quality, child-appropriate health care to more than 8 million children. Including the CHIP extension as part of the SGR/health extenders package will keep millions of children from losing access to health care and will reassure families that their children will get the care they need when they need it. We also appreciate your commitment to extending two additional programs that are critical to the health of lower-income adults and families in this package— the permanent extensions of the Qualified Individual (QI) and Transitional Medical Assistance (TMA) programs. The QI program, which pays Medicare Part B premiums for older adults who have very low incomes and assets (about $14,100 to $15,900 per year—and less than $7,280 in assets), is critical to maintaining the health of older adults. A permanent extension of TMA, which helps families temporarily continue health coverage as they transition into the workforce, will ensure that low-income working families have stable access to health care until they can afford to purchase a private health insurance plan or become eligible for employer-sponsored health insurance. Much like CHIP, in past years, both QI and TMA have enjoyed bipartisan support. We are pleased to see this tradition continue in your joint commitment to extending these important programs. We encourage your colleagues in the House to lend their support to CHIP, QI, and TMA and vote to pass this SGR/health extenders/CHIP package, so we can continue to protect the children, families, and older adults who rely on these critical health care programs. Thank you again for your bipartisan leadership on these three programs that are of utmost importance to millions of children, families and older adults. Sincerely, Ronald F. Pollack Executive Director FamiliesUSA.org 1201 New York Avenue, NW, Suite 1100 Washington, DC 20005 main 202-628-3030 / fax 202-347-2417