Capps Pushes For School Health Center Funding

Representative Lois Capps is seeking renewed federal funding for school-based health centers in legislation she announced on the Congress floor last week. Obamacare pledged $200 million for such school-based partnerships with community health centers, but that funding expires in 2014. Capps’s bill would authorize $50 million a year for five years. A school nurse in the Santa Barbara district, however, said the Congresswoman is “putting the cart before the horse.” There are five nurses—each with an average caseload of 3,000 students—for 22 schools in the district, and only one school-based center (at Santa Maria High School) in the county. Early identification of health issues, the nurse said, is a much more immediate need than treatment.