Red-state school leaders vent frustrations with GOP health bill
They say Medicaid funding cuts would hamper their ability to serve low-income and special education students.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s health care bill is getting failing grades from red-state school leaders — even in his home state of Kentucky.
Fleming County Schools Superintendent Brian Creasman was taken aback when he discovered the bill would make cuts that could devastate his ability to provide health services to needy and disabled kids.
Here in rural Kentucky, the heart of Trump country where three out of four voters cast ballots for Donald Trump and many regard McConnell as their political protector, Creasman initially thought the bill’s potential cuts to school districts must be a misunderstanding.
Only they weren’t.
About $4 billion in annual Medicaid spending goes to U.S. schools to pay for school nurses, physical, occupational and speech therapists, and school-based screenings and treatment for children from low-income families, as well as wheelchairs and even buses to transport kids with special needs.
The funds make up just 1 percent of Medicaid reimbursements, but school leaders in economically depressed parts of Appalachia, the Rust Belt and elsewhere say they are critical to providing services they are required to provide to special Red-state school leaders vent frustrations with GOP health bill - POLITICO: