Schools Set to Lose Millions Under Medicaid Changes

From The Washington Post (February 3):

Area Schools Set To Lose Millions Under Medicaid Policy Changes

By Maria Glod

Educators nationwide are protesting a Bush administration move to curtail hundreds of millions of dollars in Medicaid funding for disabled students that could force some schools already in budget straits to trim health services or cut back instructional programs.

The shift in federal reimbursement policy threatens to strip about $635 million from schools in the next academic year and $3.6 billion over five years, with Washington area schools in line to lose millions of dollars. The rule, to take effect in June unless Congress intervenes, will bar schools from billing Medicaid for busing special education students to and from school and for certain administrative expenses, including enrolling children in Medicaid and coordinating and scheduling services...

...Read more.

Comments

[terri]

This is appalling. IDEA has never been funded the way it should be, now Medicaid will not be available. The districts will have the choice of cutting into other funds (our district has just received other cuts from our state and our county as well)or excluding the kids with disabilities (future taxpayers with disabilities--if they are educated!)

Many districts around the country already do all they can to avoid educating children with disabilities, and scapegoat them whenever taxes rise or scores go down... The federal government is solidifying the dynamic of the child with a disability as the enemy of the schools and taxpayers.

It's a shell game anyway--federal money, state money, district money all comes from the same taxpayers. Saving federal dollars, while making the feds look good, just makes the costs rise locally. It doesn't really save anyone anything. And instead of blaming the federal government we can blame children with disabilities. All part of the War on Acceptance and Inclusion!