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  • Politicians Claim Cutting Medicaid Spending Will Ensure Funding for Schools. Our Analysis Shows the Opposite Will Happen

    News Article

    The 74 By: Edwin Park K-12 education and Medicaid are often cast as competing state budget priorities. Amid the calamitous loss of tax revenue in the coronavirus health and economic crisis, look for fiscal conservatives to cite their support for schools as they make arguments for cutting Medicaid spending. But a new analysis for the…

  • School Reopening Debate Highlights Student Health Concerns

    Phyllis Jordan

    The political debate over reopening schools has brought children’s health to the forefront of the nation’s coronavirus crisis, often in ways contrary to expectations. Conservative leaders, pushing for in-person instruction, are citing the social-emotional needs of children stuck at home for months. Liberal leaders, urging caution, are calling for local control of schools. From a…

  • New CCF Issue Brief on How Medicaid Block Grants and Per Capita Caps Would Harm State Funding of K-12 Education

    Edwin Park

    Today, we released a new issue brief focusing on how radically restructuring federal financing of the Medicaid program by converting it to a block grant or a per capita cap would impose large, negative pressures on state budgets.  That, in turn, could lead to significant reductions in state funding of K-12 education, which would result…

  • Illustrating the Harmful Impact of Medicaid Block Grants and Per Capita Caps on State Funding of K-12 Education

    Edwin Park

    Introduction States now face large and growing budget deficits due to the COVID-19 health and economic crisis.In turn, school districts are bracing for substantial cuts to state funding of K-12 education. One estimate finds that school districts would need $230 billion in federal assistance over the next 2 fiscal years to offset state funding losses…

  • Kids Lose Access to Critical Health Care Source When Schools Shutter Due to COVID-19

    Phyllis Jordan

    In some schools, nurses deliver the first dose of asthma medicine to students who need it every morning. In others, dentist technicians show up to clean children’s teeth and look for cavities. Across the country, school-based physical and mental health therapists support students with disabilities. With more than 120,000 schools nationwide shuttered for the foreseeable…

  • New Brief Unpacks How States Can Leverage Medicaid Funds to Expand School-Based Health

    CCFadmin

    It’s been five years since the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) opened the door to more Medicaid reimbursement for health services delivered in schools. School districts, once restricted to seeking reimbursement only under very specific conditions, were permitted to cover all eligible services delivered to all Medicaid-enrolled students. Put simply, this means more…

  • Healthy Schools Campaign Webinar Looks at Importance of Medicaid to Student Success

    Phyllis Jordan

    Think fast: What the third largest stream of federal funding flowing into public schools? Since this is Say Ahhh!, you’re probably guessing Medicaid, and you’d be right. School districts across the country receive an estimated $4.5 billion in federal Medicaid dollars every year. That’s less than 1 percent of federal Medicaid spending, but in terms…

  • CMS Guidance Spotlights Ways Medicaid Can Support Mental Health and Substance Use Disorder Services in Schools

    Candace Webb

    The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) recently released a Joint Informational Bulletin that offers a helpful roadmap to states and schools on the ways certain Medicaid authorities can help support school-based mental health and substance use disorder services for children and adolescents.  As…

  • How Medicaid and CHIP Can Support Student Success through Schools

    Candace Webb

    Seventh in a series of briefs on the future of children’s health care coverage Summary Recognizing that a healthy student is a better student, education and health officials have begun working closely in the past few years to integrate their efforts. Recent changes to federal education law, new grant programs and revised Medicaid rules have…

  • Oregon Effort Incentivizes Health Metrics for Kindergarten Readiness

    Cathy Hope

    Preparing a child for school success and the start of kindergarten is one of the most important goals of early childhood care and education. While educators and child development experts would agree that physical, oral, and behavioral health play a major role in a child’s readiness for kindergarten, Oregon and other states have struggled to…

  • Pediatricians are an Important Ally in Efforts to Reduce Chronic Absenteeism

    Phyllis Jordan

    The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recently released guidance for its 67,000 doctors on how to help children and families improve school attendance. The policy statement, authored by pediatricians Mandy A. Allison and Elliot Attisha of the organization’s Council on School Health, urges doctors to speak with children and families during office visits about the importance of…

  • Teens Discover Peer-to-Peer Outreach Works to Connect More Students with Health Coverage

    CCFadmin

    This year the Tennessee Justice Center launched a Student Ambassador Program to engage young people in our Insure Our Kids Campaign. This campaign seeks to get every eligible child in Tennessee enrolled in health insurance coverage by educating the community and providing enrollment assistance.  To find and enroll those uninsured students, we turned to their…

  • School Readiness as an “Essential Quality Metric” for Children: A Hook for Medicaid in Cross-System Work

    Elisabeth Wright Burak

    The importance of a child’s first months and years can’t be overstated. It’s a time of rapid brain development and learning, where relationships and environments set the course for a child’s lifelong trajectory—even shaping the architecture of the brain. In 2016, Medicaid and CHIP served close to half of all children under 6, and more…

  • Medicaid’s Vital Role for Schools and Students

    Karina Wagnerman

    It feels like summer just arrived, but back-to-school time is near! Before the back-to-school bell rings, we wanted to take stock of health coverage for school-age children.   As SayAhhh! readers are well aware, Medicaid and CHIP, the primary public health coverage sources for children, have worked together in recent decades to bring the rate…

  • Medicaid and CHIP Provide Health Coverage for Many School-Age Children, Yet Gaps Remain

    Karina Wagnerman

    Introduction Children need health coverage to help them stay healthy and ready to learn in the classroom. Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), the primary public health coverage sources for children, have worked together in recent decades to bring the rate of uninsured children to historic lows. In 2016, only 4.5 percent of…

  • On Medicaid, student debt, conservation and a Senate opening

    News Article

    Statehouse Report By: Lindsay Street Work requirements for Medicaid beneficiaries could cause some of the state’s poorest parents to lose health coverage, according to a new analysis by the Georgetown University Center for Children and Families and South Carolina Appleseed Legal Justice Center. The state is seeking a waiver from the U.S. Department on Health…

  • How Can Schools Leverage Medicaid to Meet Needs of Most Vulnerable Students?

    Phyllis Jordan

    When the federal government lifted its restrictions in 2014 on the services that schools could charge to Medicaid, education and health leaders saw an opportunity to provide better care for the most vulnerable students. Rather than opening the floodgates to new reimbursements, though, the lifting of the “free care rule” has left many states engaged…

  • Tackling Health Barriers to Learning – Does Your State Mandate Student Health Screenings?

    Candace Webb

    The link between a student’s health status and learning has been well established in the literature. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Division of Adolescent and School Health, “healthy students are better learners” and “schools are the right place for a healthy start.” Maximizing the school experience and success of every American…