Education Law

Children are winners in Medicaid rule reversal

After years of fighting a Medicaid rule that would’ve cut billions of dollars from services provided to eligible students, school districts across the country are seeing their advocacy efforts pay off.  Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Sibelius announced this week that the agency is reversing the rule and continues to allow school districts to claim Medicaid reimbursement for outreach activities and transportation costs for eligible students with disabilities, see the Federal Register here.

BoardBuzz knows that NSBA appreciates the years of coordinated efforts from school districts and state school boards associations to reverse the rule. Even though the rule was issued in December 2007, our joint advocacy effort has helped delay its implementation through congressional action, see NSBA’s advocacy on Medicaid reimbursement here.

Schools are an essential place where children can get their health services. Eliminating outreach and transportation reimbursement to school districts would’ve denied the most vulnerable children these services.  At the end of this fight, the winners are our children.

Full post as published by BoardBuzz: NSBA's Daily Weblog on July 01, 2009 (boomark / email).