ASK Act
Latest action. Referred to the subcommitteeA smaller panel inside a standing committee with jurisdiction over a slice of its subject matter. Most hearings and the first markup usually happen here.Read the full definition (opens a new tab) on Health.
Advancing Seniors and Kids Act or the ASK Act
This bill extends, and otherwise revises, various public health and social welfare programs. Specifically, the bill:
permanently extends the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP);
extends by one year, but reduces by half, additional federal financial participation for CHIP;
extends CHIP's qualifying-states option, express-lane eligibility option, and outreach and enrollment program;
extends the Child Enrollment Contingency Fund, the Childhood Obesity Demonstration Project, and the Pediatric Quality Measures Program;
modifies Medicare payment rules and reporting requirements with respect to ground-ambulance services;
permanently extends specialized Medicare Advantage (MA) plans for certain special-needs individuals;
expands certain supplemental benefits under MA for chronically ill enrollees;
extends the Medicare payment adjustment known as the "home-health rural add-on";
makes permanent or extends other specified programs and payment rules under Medicare;
under Medicaid, extends certain health workforce demonstration projects as well as specified programs related to community health centers, diabetes, graduate medical education, family-to-family health-information centers, abstinence education, and personal-responsibility education;
delays certain changes, under Medicaid, to disproportionate-share hospital allotments and to third-party liability provisions;
extends the Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting Program and requires, under the program, continued demonstration of improvements in certain benchmark areas;
establishes a grant program for the monitoring of representative payees under the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program and the Old Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance (OASDI) program;
otherwise revises provisions related to representative payment under SSI and OASDI; and
with respect to the child-welfare system, modifies provisions related to information sharing and to overpayment liability.
Written by analysts at the Congressional Research Service and published on Congress.gov, not by Civibrief. Summarized at the "Introduced in House" stage on January 18, 2018. It describes the bill, it is not the legal text.
Where is it in the process, and what happens next?
4 steps remain before this bill could become law.
The record's latest action, on January 23, 2018: Referred to the Subcommittee on Health.
- Clearing the committees it was referred to, and being scheduled for a floor vote
- Passage by the House
- Passage by the Senate
- The President's signature. If the President vetoes it, two-thirds of both chambers must vote to override.
How likely is it to become law?
Civibrief does not forecast outcomes and this page has no opinion about this one. What the record supports is a base rate, which is a fact about the whole pile, not a prediction about this measure.
In the 115th Congress (2017-18), 442 of the 11,421 bills and joint resolutions introduced became law, about 3.9 percent. That count covers every measure at every stage, including the many that never left committee.
This one is not there yet: 4 steps are still outstanding, listed above.
Has anyone actually voted on it?
No. No roll call in this Congress cites this measure. That is the ordinary outcome: most measures never reach a recorded floor vote, and a committee ends most of them simply by not acting.
A vote is not the only thing that happens to a measure. Hearings, markups, and referrals are all recorded actions, and none of them is a vote of the full chamber.
Who is behind it?
A. McEachin (D-VA) introduced it on January 18, 2018, and 84 members have since signed on as cosponsors.
They are 84 Democrats.
Cosponsoring is a formal signature on the text. It is not a commitment to vote for the measure, it does not bind anyone's party, and a long list of cosponsors is a measure of attention rather than of prospects.
How long has it been in play?
It was introduced on January 18, 2018, 3157 days ago. The most recent recorded action was 3152 days ago, on January 23, 2018.
Measures do not carry over. Anything the 115th Congress has not finished by January 3, 2019 dies when the term ends, and has to be introduced again from the start in the next Congress.
Every answer above is assembled from this measure's own record on Congress.gov and from published counts of what Congress has passed before. Civibrief does not predict outcomes and takes no position on any measure.
Vote history
- HouseIn committee, no floor vote yet
- SenateAwaits House passage
- PresidentAwaits both chambers