The programs spending exceeds targets. And working on extending chip, the Childrens HealthInsurance Program which expired at the end of september. The house is expected to gavel back in for votes shortly. Heres more on the childrens Insurance Program. What is the chip program and why is the house taking it now after it expired . The chip program is a program that funds Health Insurance for children that are low income but make a little too much, their family, qualify for medicaid. Unlike medicaid, it needs to be annually reauthorized or every few years, depending on how often they make the authorization for. Groups have been clamoring for reauthorization for several months now and there have been some disagreements between democrats and republicans on how long to authorize the bill and how to offset it, which is why ts been taking so long. How long would this bill reauthorize, how long would the chip program be reauthorized for and on the republican side who is leading the efforts on the bill . Sure. This bill would reauthorize the program for five years. Which is longer than has been previously done. And on the republican side its being spearheaded by michael burgess, the chairman of the Health Subcommittee on energy and commerce. And also the chairman of energy and commerce, greg walden. In one of your cq. Com headlines, house prepares to vote on Childrens Health bill you say the bill has been subject to fierce debate in committee. What are democrats main issues with the bill . Democrats are having problems with the offsets which is how the bill is paid for. And there are five offsets in this bill that democrats are having issues with all of them. The first would be to raise premiums for seniors on medicare. Who make more than 500,000 a year. The second would be to limit benefits for medicaid beneficiaries who have won the lottery and won a lump sum. Also, there are problems with changing the grace period for individuals with qualified health plans. Currently the grace peert is period is 90 day, this bill would change toyota 30 days or whatever a state would set. And democrats have a problem with this because this could end up bumping people who dont pay r their plan off the exchanges. He other two things are offsets are for changing medicaid third party liability, which means that if an individual has two forms of insurance, medicaid and something else, such as a private insurer or medicare, they would bill medicaid after the other ones have been paid for. Which would decrease costs. And the final offset that democrats are having the most issues with is a 6. 35 billion cut to the Public Health and prevention fund. That is the one that democrats especially frank pallone, the Ranking Member of commrge and commerce committee, really would like to change. So the debate on chip, including measures on Community Health centers, as you mention, also medicare and medicaid, also funding in particular for medicare and medicaid in puerto rico and the virgin islands. In the wake of the most recent hurricane, why is that important . So this bill would give funding for medicaid for puerto rico and the u. S. Virgin islands and was crafted before a lot of the aftermath of the hurricanes. So it was the spending levels are looking looked at from before then but this bill would give about 1 million to the Medicaid Program in puerto rico. And democrats have a few issues with this because this would require a match from puerto rico on because thats how medicaid works. You immediate to do a match for the state. Theyre worried puerto rico would be unable to do that match given the situation there. Where is the u. S. Senate in terms of reauthorizing chip and the other measures in this Health Care Package . So the u. S. Senate, the Senate Finance committee has passed a bill, its very similar to this bill in terms of its a fiveyear reauthorization for chip. But it does not include funding for the other safety net programs like Community Health centers. The senate bill also does not have offsets in it. That is something that senators orrin hatch and ron wyden are still working on. Our guest writes for cq roll call. Follow her on twitter. Thanks for the update. Thank you. Lawmakers have been reacting to the republican tax reform plan announced earlier today on twitter, House Speaker paul ryan says, with the tax cuts and jobs act, the typical working family of four will save 1,182 a year on their taxes. Democratic leader nancy pelosi tweets, reagan, bush 41, bush 43, they all tried trickle down economics and not once did it help working families. She adds the hashtag,