New Report: How Medicaid Supports Student Success

Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families has released a new resource, “How Medicaid Supports Student Success”, which highlights Medicaid’s significant impact on student achievement and provides key insights and talking points helpful for advocacy efforts aimed at showcasing the broader benefits of Medicaid in improving various aspects of young peoples’ lives.

Medicaid provides health coverage to almost half of America’s children, and 1-in-3 Medicaid enrollees is a child between the ages of 5 and 18. The report highlights the way that Medicaid has been integrated into school environments to produce the following positive outcomes:

• Helping Children Reach their Full Potential: Children covered by Medicaid are more likely to receive the preventive health care that keeps them in school, annual checkups that allow them to participate in sports, and treatment when they are sick or injured. All those benefits add up to stronger, healthier students — boosting both school achievement and economic prosperity as adults.
• Giving Youth a Strong Start: Too often, children falling behind in the classroom suffer from undiagnosed health issues. Medicaid allows for early screening to identify these barriers to success and intervene early.
• Ensuring Students Show Up for School: National absenteeism rates are higher than ever, and the number 1 reason is due to illness. Increased health and mental health allow students to attend school, which leads to better social-emotional skills, higher reading scores, and lower dropout rates.
• Supporting Students with Disabilities: Many schools use Medicaid to pay for the personnel, services, and equipment they are required to provide disabled students who have Individualized Education Plans.
• Broadening Health Care Options at School: Medicaid is also a key source of funding for school-based health care provided to all eligible students in many states, like Ohio.
• Bridging Gaps in Rural Areas: School-based health care plays an especially important role in rural areas, where families often must drive long distances to see a doctor or reach a hospital. With support from Medicaid, rural schools can not only provide on-site nurses and health providers but can access mental health therapists and medical specialists through virtual connections.