Kids and Health Care: Chapter 7 - School Programs, Etc. Conclusion

Because of the political debates over sex education (let alone treatments) and reporting requirements, some states swing back and forth on funding the clinics. In Massachusetts, for example, the state closed its 70 school-based health centers in 2003 because politicians in Boston were bickering over their funding. The state legislators later restored enough funding to allow 45 of them to reopen, but that money was only budgeted for one year...so the politics were likely to come into play again.

Despite this politicking, expanded school clinics are likely to become more common. Community health clinics -- of which school clinics are a particular subset -- use a combination of public and private funding to provide affordable or free health care to local residents. Conceptually, they're a favored health care alternative for policy makers of all political stripes.

George W. Bush has generally encouraged these clinics as a cost-effective alternative to federal health bureaucracy. In 2003, he called for increased funding for clinics -- up to $2 billion a year by 2006. Some of this money will filter down to schools.

Fittingly, one of the biggest benefits of school-based health clinics may be educational. Public health experts argue that one side effect of having a large number of uninsured families is that their kids never learn how to use medical services...how to see a doctor before a health issue becomes acute or life-threatening. In this sense, the school clinics teach older kids how to think of medicine as a preventive measure.

And that's certainly a valuable lesson.