LOS ANGELES COUNTY: Applies For School Clinic Funds
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors today will formally seek federal matching dollars from the Health Care Financing Administration for school-based medical clinics. The Board resolved in October to secure Medicaid funding for the school clinics (see CHL 10/16), and Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky announced yesterday that the county could stand to receive $90 million -- nearly twice the projected amount -- "by expanding the program" beyond the Los Angeles Unified School District. Supervisors hope to bring the school-based clinic programs to Pasadena, Alhambra, Monterey Park, El Monte, Pomona, Long Beach, Culver City and any other school district "with a basic medical program and more than 75% of its students receiving free school lunches." The county, arguing that the school districts are a branch of the county health system, hopes to take advantage of a federal promise to "match each dollar spent on care in community clinics rather than on costly inpatient hospital care" (Riccardi, Los Angeles Times, 1/8).
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