Bush Attacks Kids Again

I'm strongly in favor of using taxes to redistribute wealth - at least to the point that the poorest among us has health care, food and shelter. Sometimes the government in Washington agrees - they pass laws requiring schools to provide all kinds of social services from free lunches to medical care for the handicapped. I agree with a lot of this stuff - but I've always disliked what are known as "unfunded mandates." To me, unfunded mandates are chicken-shit solutions - Congress and the Administration know what should be done, but they don't want to take the heat for spending the money.

The Bush administration is usually honest about their feelings on these programs - they hate them. George and Company really don't like spending money on the poor folk - we saw that with the veto of the SCHIP program in which our President essentially told the public that if families can't afford health insurance or medical bills, then they ought to just get sick and die.

But here's George at work again - underfunding mandates so that the cost of the programs come disproportionately from the poor.

From the Washington Post...

The Bush administration yesterday eliminated about $700 million a year in Medicaid reimbursements to schools, sidestepping an attempt by Congress to block such a move.

The new rule, issued by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, is expected to save the federal government $3.6 billion over five years, transferring those costs to school districts.
...

But the new rule will restrict when schools can bill the federal government for clerical work associated with providing health care. For example, schools can no longer expect Medicaid reimbursement for planning student immunizations. Schools also will not get paid for transporting students getting speech or physical therapy to school or back home.

Hundreds of people, most of them opposed to the change, commented in writing to CMS on the proposal. School principals and superintendents said that the loss of the funding could mean that schools would have to cut back on other programs.