The Biden Administration Justifies Providing Full Healthcare Services at School: ‘Children Spend Most of Their Waking Hours in School’
The Biden Education Department announced Thursday that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has released a “comprehensive guide” to expand Medicaid to allow students to receive their healthcare services at school while schools get reimbursed for providing them.
The guide, titled “Delivering Services in School-Based Settings: A Comprehensive Guide to Medicaid Services and Administrative Claiming,” suggests in its introduction the healthcare services provided in schools will cover a lot of ground:
The school setting provides a unique opportunity to deliver health care services to children and adolescents, especially those enrolled in Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). School-based services (SBS), including but not limited to preventive care, mental health and substance use disorder (SUD) services, physical and occupational therapy, and disease management have been shown to improve both health and academic outcomes.
Since justification for most of the Biden administration’s initiatives is entrenched in its “equity” narrative, school-based healthcare services (SBS) are no different:
Schools can play an important role in bridging equity gaps among students in low-income and rural communities where access to health care services may be more limited. To deliver SBS, it is essential that State Medicaid and CHIP agencies … , State Educational Agencies (SEAs), and schools all work together to support students. This guide is designed to facilitate the development and enhancement of these critical partnerships.
“The guide released today outlines flexibilities states can adopt to make it easier for schools to get paid for these critical health services delivered to children enrolled in Medicaid” and CHIP, the education department said.
"With this guide, we are helping states and schools bring health care to kids where they are, rather than the other way around," said CMS Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure. "Children spend most of their waking hours in school. We also know that children have suffered serious declines in access to mental and behavioral health care services during the COVID-19 pandemic. We're making it easier for states and schools to maximize Medicaid coverage to grow connections to care."
The guide instructs states and schools about:
How payments can be made for school-based services under Medicaid and CHIP;
How states can simplify billing for school-based services
Examples of approved methods that state agencies have used to pay for covered services; and
How to enroll qualified health care providers to participate in Medicaid and furnish services within school settings.
The education department says CMS will be releasing even more “resources to help ensure states can optimize children’s access to school-based services,” including $50 million in grants and a “school-based services technical assistance center” that will work with the education department.
In keeping with turning government-run schools into pediatric clinics, the education department says it will release a proposed rule under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) that would “streamline consent provisions when billing for Medicaid services provided through a student’s individualized education program (IEP).
"Students are six times more likely to access mental health when these services are offered in school, and that's one important reason why making it easier for schools to provide health care is at the heart of the Biden-Harris Administration's efforts to address the youth mental health crisis and raise the bar for learning conditions in our schools," said U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona.
The Daily Signal posted this video clip about a year ago when Cardona testified before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee regarding the failures of the government education system that were exposed during the COVID pandemic:
The guide to expand school-based health care services and the proposed rule come as Cardona received considerable backlash from parents and parental rights activists Friday when he posted to Twitter:
Teachers know what is best for their kids because they are with them every day. We must trust teachers.
https://twitter.com/SecCardona/status/1659652692107468811
“𝙋𝘼𝙍𝙀𝙉𝙏𝙎 know what is best for their kids because they are and have been with them every day for 𝙮𝙚𝙖𝙧𝙨,” replied conservative activist Regina Mauro. “We must trust them. Teachers, who are with them a few hours a week during the 9 months they're in school can help.”
https://twitter.com/ReginaMMauro/status/1659674342651731970
Twitter user TxnVt responded:
Trust isn’t something given it’s earned through action. Indoctrination isn’t appropriate in any classroom setting. Children do not belong to schools they belong to the parents who conceived or adopted them. They are not given over for programming but to be taught basic subjects in preparing them to make their way in the world. Parents play a huge role in this that exceeds the classroom. So keep your socialist agenda to yourself.
https://twitter.com/TxnCmbtVt/status/1659675409733017600
“They are most definitely NOT their kids,” Grey Worm also posted. “They ‘have’ them at most an hour or two a day. We have them 24/7/365. Teachers are paid to perform a specific service and they are failing miserably at it. Focus on the basics and knock off the social engineering.”
https://twitter.com/grey_worm5309/status/1659676550168543233
Twitter user Calista Reece asked Cardona, “What is the national reading, writing and math scores again? Perhaps talk to us about trust when those scores are 80% +.”
https://twitter.com/calista_reece/status/1659681177807257600
And legal analyst and columnist Phil Holloway tweeted his reaction.
“Parents, behold your government,” he said. “They aren’t even hiding their disdain for you anymore.”
https://twitter.com/PhilHollowayEsq/status/1659692828707127299