County to Pursue Plan for Clinics at Schools

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors has directed several departments to pursue a plan to use as much as $50 million in federal dollars to bring health care to uninsured children in the Los Angeles Unified School District.

Under the plan, which would require approval of the federal government and the school district, the money from Washington would come through a proposed expansion of the county’s Medicaid waiver. That waiver, created to allow the county to revamp its health-care system, matches every dollar spent locally on outpatient care at non-hospital-based clinics with federal money.

About 271,000 children in the school district are uninsured. The money would be used to expand health care in the schools, including adding nurses and doctors and expanding the hours that school medical clinics are open.

An amendment by Supervisor Don Knabe, approved by the supervisors, calls for the county’s chief administrative officer and school superintendent to explore expanding the plan to school districts countywide. The two were ordered to report to the board in a month.