“Natalie” is a beautiful 2-year-old girl from Maui whom I have known for over a year now. Although both of her parents have full-time jobs, they don’t make enough to afford health insurance on their own, and they enrolled her in Hawaii’s QUEST public health insurance program.

Because of this coverage, Natalie has had regular checkups and screenings since birth, and her pediatrician discovered early on that she was not learning to talk like other children. QUEST helped her to get further evaluation, and I diagnosed her with autism spectrum disorder about a year ago. She is now receiving therapies that QUEST pays for to help her reach her fullest potential, and she has made great progress.

I tell this story (with the family’s permission) because Natalie is just one of the thousands of children in Hawaii who receive health care through the QUEST program.

QUEST is Hawaii’s version of the federal Medicaid program and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP).

Hawaii has about 150,000 children on Medicaid and about 26,000 on CHIP. Because of these programs and Hawaii’s innovative Prepaid Healthcare Act (employer-sponsored health care), over 98 percent of our keiki have health insurance for when they need it.

QUEST pays for health care for our most vulnerable kupuna, keiki and ohana. It provides for comprehensive benefits including check-ups, visits for illnesses, medications, hospital stays, medical equipment and supplies, dental care and mental health programs.

It was one of the first insurance programs in Hawaii to pay for autism therapies, even before new state law required private insurance companies to cover these services.

Just last month, despite having years to prepare, Congress let CHIP expire. This is a particularly difficult cut to comprehend. CHIP has had bipartisan support in Congress since its beginning in 1997. CHIP is only for children and, in some states, pregnant women. CHIP costs a fraction of the Medicaid and Medicare programs.

Because of the lack of action in Congress, Hawaii will run out of CHIP funding by the end of 2017, and Natalie will have her autism care interrupted until her family finds insurance in some other way.

Fortunately, Congress has recently begun to act. Bills to reauthorize CHIP have progressed out of committees in both the U.S. House (the HEALTHY KIDS Act of 2017) and U.S. Senate (KIDS Act of 2017).

These bills would reauthorize CHIP for five years and preserve many of the same protections for children that expired last month.

However, the House bill contains controversial cuts to Medicare that may harm seniors and delay its passage.

Members of Congress from both sides of the aisle need to hear from you, urging them to act to support reauthorization of CHIP.

A long-term funding extension would ensure that no child has an interruption in coverage, that no family will have to worry about paying for needed health care, and that our state can stabilize its budget and continue the vital work of protecting our keiki and ohana.

Our keiki will grow up to be our state’s citizens, workers and our neighbors.

We should do our part to help them reach their brightest future.

Michael Ching, M.D., M.P.H., F.A.A.P., is vice president of the American Academy of Pediatrics-Hawaii chapter.