GOP Healthcare Bill Could Strip Public Schools of Billions for Special Education

According to a report by Emma Brown from Education, The Republican health-care legislation would curtail billions of dollars in annual funding they count on to help students with disabilities and poor children.

For the past 30 years, Medicaid has helped pay for services and equipment that schools provide to special-education students, as well as school-based health screening and treatment for children from low-income families. That money pays for nurses, social workers, physical, occupational and speech therapists and medical equipment such as walkers and wheelchairs. It also pays for preventive and comprehensive health services for poor children, including immunizations, screening for hearing and vision problems and management of chronic conditions like asthma and diabetes.

Schools have been able to register as Medicaid providers and seek reimbursement, as doctors and hospitals do, since 1988. Two-thirds of districts that bill Medicaid use the money to pay the salaries of employees who work directly with children, such as school nurses and therapists, according to a January survey by the School Superintendents Association (AASA).

But the Republican push to overhaul health care would implement a new “per capita cap” system for Medicaid: Instead of matching whatever states spend on Medicaid, the federal government would instead give them a fixed amount for each Medicaid enrollee.

Under the House GOP bill, which passed last month, that change would reduce federal spending about $880 billion over the next decade, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. The Senate GOP version would cut about $772 billion over the same time period.
The Senate bill is being revised after pushback from several key Republicans — including Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, who has raised concerns about the impact of Medicaid cuts on special education. Details may change as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) seeks to negotiate a deal that can pass.

Schools receive less than 1 percent of federal Medicaid spending, according to the National Alliance for Medicaid in Schools. But federal Medicaid reimbursements constitute the third-largest federal funding stream to public schools, behind $15 billion they receive each year for educating poor children and $13 billion they receive to educate students with disabilities under the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act (IDEA).