Flawed subsidized health care plans for low-income children in the Washington area have helped lead to a growing number of free clinics on public school campuses.
In Montgomery County, about 50 percent of the students covered by subsidized state and local plans, such as the Maryland Children’s Health Program, or CHIP, receive “well-child” visits, according to data from the county health department. Those visits — essentially, periodic physicals — are seen as a marker of long-term health.
In the county’s six school-based clinics, however, a full 95 percent of enrolled students receive physicals, said Judy Covich, the county’s manager of school health services.
“Kids in CHIP programs have a remarkably lower rate of well-child visits,” Covich said. “That shows our value in terms of access.”
Covich added that teachers and administrators have been clamoring for the clinics, saying their presence leads to happier students and fewer absences.
But while they’re free to students — and about 90 percent are enrolled in the clinics at each school — they’re pricey for taxpayers. A clinic opened at Gaithersburg’s Summit Hall Elementary in 2008 cost about $1.6 million to build. A new clinic at Silver Spring’s New Hampshire Estates Elementary costs about $350,000 per year to maintain.
The county plans to build two more clinics by 2012 at Rolling Terrace Elementary in Takoma Park and Highland Elementary in Silver Spring. Following those, tentative plans exist for clinics at Gaithersburg, Watkins Mill and Wheaton high schools. In the District of Columbia, Northeast’s Eastern and Woodson senior highs as well as Marie Reed Elementary in Northwest have health centers. Plans are in place to build them at Anacostia, Ballou and Coolidge senior highs in coming years, said a district spokeswoman. Prince George’s County has four school-based clinics. Virginia districts have none. According to the D.C. Assembly on School Health Care, more than one-third of the city’s children had not received a preventive care visit in the past year, even though less than 10 percent went without consistent insurance coverage. Skeptics questions the cost-effectiveness of the centers, said Lisa Snell, director of education at the Reason Foundation, a libertarian think tank. “It’s all well and good to spend money on a health clinic, but that won’t necessarily help with the goal of improving public education,” Snell said, citing studies that showed little correlation between dollars spent and educational outcomes. “We make these investments that don’t correlate with improvements,” she said.
