In what is becoming an annual fight between Congress and the Bush administration, there is another fight this year over whether to give states more time to spend grants for a children's health insurance program.

At the end of the fiscal year later this week, states will lose access to $1.1 billion in federal funds for the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). Some states facing budget challenges can't utilize the money because they are having a difficult time supplying the matching funds.

Democrats and moderate Republican senators say they will work to continue to push for a time extension.

SCHIP was created in 1997 to provide states with grants to offer health insurance for children whose families' incomes exceed the limit for Medicaid eligibility but are too low to buy private health insurance. In order to obtain the federal funding, states much put up a match for the grants.

The administration has indicated that it wants to shift some funds to bolster the President's faith-based initiatives.