With no immediate congressional action in sight, Arizona Medicaid officials are preparing to implement a contingency plan to make sure that nearly 24,000 Arizona children do not lose their health care.

Heidi Capriotti, with the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System, said the money her agency has been using to keep the KidsCare program afloat after Congress failed to reauthorize the Children’s Health Insurance Program is running out.

The plan is to use money Arizona gets from the federal government for its separate, traditional Medicaid plan to pay the premiums.

"We want to get in to 2018," Capriotti said. "We want to give Congress every opportunity we can for that funding reauthorization."

Capriotti called this a “stop gap” measure. After that, she said, if Congress does not come through, it’ll be up to state lawmakers to find the dollars or simply end the program all together.