From the Washington Post:

Educators across the country are protesting a Bush administration plan to strip $3.6 billion in federal Medicaid funds from schools over the next five years.

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.

Administration officials said schools, required under federal law to provide education to children with special needs, should pick up the bill for expenses that are part of their “educational mission.” But educators said it would further strain schools in a time of lean budgets, hitting big city and poor rural systems hardest.

… Dennis G. Smith, director of the federal Center for Medicaid and State Operations, said the change will help reign in a system in which federal auditors have found improper billing in some states. “This is not about medically necessary services,” Smith said. “We will continue to pay for those types of services. Medicaid was being used simply to leverage revenues for activities that had very little to do with serving children on Medicaid. Schools already have responsibility to transport all children, not just Medicaid children, to school. That should not be billed to Medicaid.”

Health advocates and Democratic lawmakers criticized the change as a rash shift that ultimately could result in fewer needy children connecting with health services.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 4th, 2008 at 7:04 pm and is filed under Medicaid/Medicare, NOT2BEMISSED, special education, transportation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.  Email This Post