Three Cheers For Public Schools

There's a disturbing article today over on LRC by Linda Schrock Taylor about how public schools are gaining some extra cash by defrauding Medicaid. The system is already overloaded and health care professionals are having to wait a long time before getting paid for legitimate services they provide. Yet here we have an eyewitness telling us how public schools are claiming that "special education" also consists of providing medical services, even though nothing remotely medical is going on.

Teachers are instructed to file Medicaid claims for any and all contact they have with special-ed students. In her own words Linda says, "I have been instructed to note and detail every contact I have, with any general education teacher, who also works with any of the students on my caseload, who qualify for Medicaid. None of these encounters, brief or long, are medically related, or serve medical purposes, yet I am being ordered to bill Medicaid for them. In fact, I have been ordered to over-bill, just in case Medicaid decides to under-pay." Linda, being a principled and honest person has been refusing to do so. As a result she says, "I face an open threat of disciplinary action because I refuse to believe that I am a medical provider, and I refuse to fill out claim forms."

This is not at all surprising to me, but it serves to underscore the type of corruption that always occurs when governments engage in "providing services" using funds stolen from taxpayers. Since government did not do any productive work to gain the funds, but rather the money was taken by force, (or printed out of thin air,) there is little incentive to ensure that it is used efficiently and to supply the most urgent needs. Not only is there no incentive to do so, but since there are no prices involved to provide feedback as to the urgency of the uses, it is impossible to know exactly where the funds should spent because we cannot know what uses are the most urgent.

Instead a clamor ensues where special interest groups and private and public organizations climb all over each other to get their hands on government money. This clamor most often includes all manner of lobbying, legislating, lying, and cheating, such as is the case here with public schools. The private sector has been defrauding the system for who knows how long and has no doubt succeeded in stealing millions each year. Isn't it comforting to know that the "public" sector is getting its share of the loot as well? This type of thing can't be solved by stricter laws, tighter controls or more spies. The solution is to get rid of systems that allow for such unbridled corruption to take place. Take the money out of the public trough and put it back in private hands where it belongs.