From Temporary Fixes to Lasting Change: Fixing CHIP Eligibility in Kansas

Heather Braum | May 21, 2026

The 2026 session proved successful for one particular policy: updating state law to ensure more eligible Kansas kids can access health coverage through the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP).  

To understand why a small change will make a big impact on Kansas families – picture this scenario: It’s 2019, and your child’s CHIP coverage is up for annual renewal. Your household income hasn’t changed at all from 2018, and you assume everything will go smoothly to continue that coverage. However, after submitting renewal paperwork, you receive notice that your child is no longer eligible and their coverage will be discontinued at the end of the month. Your child is now uninsured, and you don’t know what you’ll do to afford their health care.

What that Kansas family did not know is that from 2008 to 2022, Kansas’ household income eligibility threshold for CHIP slowly decreased each year, as this threshold was tied to 250% of the 2008 federal poverty level (FPL), all because of a seemingly innocuous phrase in Kansas law added nearly 20 years ago.

Every year following, the state was required to convert the eligibility percentage back to its equivalent of the 2008 federal poverty level. By 2021, it had declined to 225% FPL, and with inflation rapidly increasing the next few years, 2026 estimates predicted a percentage conversion to under 190%. Thousands of Kansas kids would have lost their CHIP coverage at this point.

When we started working on this issue in 2021 – identified by our national partner, the Georgetown University Center for Children and Families – we expected it to be a simple process to remove this year-specific reference from state law after identifying it was included in error. Yet, nothing is ever simple in the Kansas Legislature.

For nearly five years, politics out of our control, federal policy changes, and other issues prevented passage of what was dubbed the “CHIP eligibility fix.” Even so, lawmakers found a temporary solution beginning in 2022 to fix this issue one year at a time through the state’s budget process.

Finally, the 2026 session became the right opportunity at the right time to remove this error from state law when the Kansas Legislature unanimously passed SB 271 and the Governor signed the bill, cementing it into state law.

As we look back on our five years of work on this policy, we’re reflecting on what it took to finally get it across the finish line.

2021-2022: First Steps

Research and Bill Drafting

After learning of the problem in mid-2021, we reached out to a lawmaker to connect us to legislative staff to understand how this issue came to be.

Legislative staff shared hearing documents, committee minutes, and bill versions from 2008 when Kansas had last significantly updated the CHIP eligibility statute. What we discovered is that somewhere between the initial and final bill versions, someone had unintentionally added the 2008 year-specific reference, so that eligible children would qualify for CHIP if “in a household having a gross household income…at or under 250% of the 2008 federal poverty income guidelines.”

After connecting with the Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE), the agency in charge of CHIP, staff agreed with us that connecting the CHIP eligibility back to the current year FPL – the practice in every other state — would need to be addressed through state legislation. Before 2021 ended, we worked with legislative bill drafters to address this issue in the 2022 legislative session.

Bill Hearing and First Committee Passage

In the 2022 session, two identical bills addressing this issue were introduced in the state Senate and House. In the Senate hearing for the bill, questions emerged leading to a proposed compromise. In the end, we reluctantly agreed to support the proposed change to keep the bill moving forward.

Unfortunately, the bill passing out of the Senate Health Committee in 2022 was the most forward progress this issue would see for the next three years.

A Temporary Solution

After the Senate version stalled, key Representatives revealed the House version would not move forward due to it possibly turning into an opportunity to expand Medicaid.

For more than a decade, the Kansas Legislature avoided most opportunities to expand Medicaid, including not allowing potentially related bills from moving forward. Unfortunately, several lawmakers saw this CHIP eligibility bill being an opportunity to expand Medicaid. We have been long-time supporters of Medicaid expansion and had to navigate the trickiness of passing this simple CHIP policy while separately supporting Medicaid expansion.

With the bill not moving forward, we needed an alternative solution to ensure Kansas kids didn’t lose access to health coverage through CHIP. The House Health and Social Services Budget Committee Chairs offered an option: a one-year budget proviso to temporarily ignore the 2008-year reference for the CHIP eligibility threshold.

(Budget provisos are temporary clauses of language in the budget bill that require something of a state agency during a certain fiscal year or years, or in this instance, to direct the agency to temporarily override state law.)

With this budget proviso getting added to the House budget bill and surviving the legislative process, Kansas’ CHIP eligibility threshold was finally at the intended 250% FPL for the first time since 2008.

During the fall, we spoke twice before the Robert G. (Bob) Bethell Joint Committee on Home and Community Based Services and KanCare Oversight (KanCare Oversight, shortened), explaining the importance of including this fix in their recommendations to the 2023 Legislature, which they did. However, key lawmakers publicly acknowledged the challenge of this fix moving forward because of the state’s Medicaid expansion politics.

2023-2025: More Temporary Fixes

For the next three years, we saw limited progress as other priorities and politics continued to delay the statutory fix.

New bills were introduced at the start of the 2023 session, and both chambers’ Health committees held hearings on their respective bills. However, no further action was taken through the end of the 2024 session. The budget proviso continued to be added to the 2023, 2024, and 2025 budget bills, addressing the issue one year at a time.

Each fall, we testified before the KanCare Oversight Committee requesting this issue to be statutorily fixed. If that was not possible, we urged the Legislature’s ongoing support of the temporary budget proviso. The KanCare Oversight Committee continued to include support of the issue in their recommendations to the 2024, 2025, and 2026 Legislatures.

In 2025, we continued discussions with key lawmakers. Interest in a fix continued, and lawmakers introduced new versions of this legislation that also included two other CHIP eligibility changes based on recent updates to federal policies.

After yet another hearing on the House side, the CHIP fix bill was ultimately combined with other generally noncontroversial health policies, and then overwhelmingly passed the full House. This was the first time the CHIP eligibility fix language had ever passed in either chamber, and we felt hopeful it was close to final passage.

Ultimately, the Senate didn’t approve of the CHIP fix being included in the final version of this bill, and the policy remained on hold until 2026.

The CHIP fix policy failing to move forward after being so close to the finish line told us there was more work to do to create better understanding with key Senators of why this policy was needed.

2026: Final Passage

As the 2026 session began, we again worked with key lawmakers and state agency staff, opening the door for an informational hearing on SB 271 in early February 2026 in the Senate Health Committee.

Just like in 2022, a few concerns were raised by senators, and amendments were added to the bill to address these concerns before the bill passed out of committee. The compromise wasn’t ideal, but choosing to support the amended bill would get the underlying policy closer to becoming law.

Two days later, SB 271 was debated on the Senate floor. Much to our surprise, another senator introduced an amendment to undo the most concerning committee change. Enough senators agreed with his reasoning, and the amendment passed. A few hours later, the bill passed the Senate unanimously.

The bill moved to the House next, where it quickly sailed through committee, and unanimously passed the full House chamber. Because of a small difference between the Senate and House versions, the bill was sent through the conference committee process for further review.

In the end, nothing changed about the CHIP eligibility fix in conference committee, both chambers passed the final version unanimously, and the Governor signed the bill into law in April.

For the first time in 18 years, Kansas kids enrolled in CHIP would retain their coverage year after year if they met all the eligibility requirements, including the 250% FPL of the current year household income threshold.

Lessons Learned

Along the way, we learned several strategic lessons.

1. Compromise. Compromise must always be a part of the process when pursuing a legislative change, and deciding what changes are acceptable may determine success. Lawmakers have the final say, and sometimes to get to the end goal, advocates must accept different ideas. That’s part of the process.
   
   
2. Committee Leadership Conversations. Knowing which committee a bill will move through matters, usually obvious from its subject matter. Its likely home identifies which committee leaders need to be talked to first to begin education and request a bill hearing.
   
   
3. Type of Committee. The committee type impacts how long a bill can remain active during session. Most committees have a limited window where bills can be introduced. And they usually must pass the first chamber by the mid-point of session to continue forward. Bills introduced in certain committees remain active the entire session. They also can be introduced at any time in these committees. We were strategic as to where several of the CHIP fix bills were introduced to ensure they could remain in play for the entire session.
   
   
4. Budget Provisos. While budget provisos can be a way for some policies to skirt the legislative process and higher scrutiny, they can sparingly be used for good policy that isn’t moving forward the traditional way. However, key lawmakers from the majority party must agree to keep these in throughout the budget legislation process.
   
   
5. Patience and Persistence. We had to learn to be patient and only bring the issue up at the right time in the right spaces to the right people, while also never letting key lawmakers lose sight of the need to prioritize this policy fix. Even though we didn’t always agree with their conclusions, we still worked with these lawmakers to find pathways forward for temporary and statutory fixes.
   
   
6. State Agency and Partner Organization Support. Policy work is not done in isolation; it is done in partnership. KDHE leadership played an important role in explaining some of the more complex federal policy changes to lawmakers, as well as practical ramifications of proposed changes to the legislation. Keeping these agency experts informed and involved when allowable was a critical component of the CHIP eligibility fix’s success. Additionally, for several years, multiple Kansas health and child organizations weighed in during bill hearings and strongly supported the issue alongside us.

Conclusion

While it took nearly five years to push the CHIP eligibility fix legislation across the finish line, the process and the lessons we learned along the way have broader implications.

Good policy can pass, no matter the political party in charge. And while the approach we followed took longer and wasn't flashy or frequently within the public view, sometimes waiting for the right people and the right moments results in success.

At the end of the day, we are proud of the impact we made for the nearly 58,000 eligible Kansas kids with CHIP coverage who won’t be cut off because of a drafting error in the original law, and we thank the numerous lawmakers who championed this solution these last five years.

The work is never over, as Kansas kids and families continue to face numerous challenges in affording and accessing health care. But we are pleased to celebrate this significant victory in 2026 – especially for the thousands of Kansas kids impacted now and into the future.

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