Chuck Grassley: “I understand the concerns of our colleagues. Certainly, there are those who think we should have gone further in this…”

“I understand the concerns of our colleagues. Certainly, there are those who think we should have gone further in this proposal. There are Senators who support going from a 3-year allotment structure to a 2-year allotment structure immediately. And there are Senators who want to put greater limits on how CHIP dollars can be spent, to ensure program spending prioritizes children first. Senator Baucus and I developed a CHIP proposal that is somewhere in between but is a proposal that meets our ultimate objective of keeping children covered. We can have a policy debate about the merits of various proposals when we reauthorize the program next year. Nothing in this package precludes us from doing that.”