Secretary Betsy DeVos has drawn stinging criticism for her latest budget proposal for eliminating funding for Special Olympics programs at schools. There is a much larger budget item that would fund those and many other programs that benefit individuals with intellectual disabilities: Medicaid funding for prenatal genetic testing for Down syndrome.
Secretary DeVos has actually proposed these sort of cuts for the past three budgets, none of which have passed as proposed. But the cuts to Special Olympics are being decried by elected officials of both parties and many others.
Budgets are about choices and prove the wisdom from scripture that “where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” We fund what we care about, what we deem important.
Sec. DeVos defends her proposal to cut federal funding for Special Olympics because it is a non-profit that raises $100 million. Indeed, Sec. DeVos, herself, has donated and supported Special Olympics. And, therefore, in making her case, Special Olympics does not need federal funding.
The critics are demanding that the proposed cuts not be allowed and funding for Special Olympics remain. I, however, have not heard a budgetary proposal for where the estimated $18 million will instead be taken from or offset by some revenue generating proposal for that amount.
But there is a budgetary item that would fund all of the proposed cuts to Special Olympics, as well as fund historically underfunded, federally mandated inclusive educational supports.
Every state’s Medicaid program funds prenatal genetic testing for aneuploidy, conditions like Down syndrome and Trisomy 18, to some extent or another. Some may only cover conventional screening and amniocentesis. Other states cover cell free DNA screening for high risk mothers. And, still others, like Florida, Minnesota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia cover cell free DNA screening for all expectant mothers.
Right now there is a lobbying effort by the private, for-profit prenatal testing laboratories to get every state to join states like Florida and cover cell free DNA screening for all expectant mothers.
The coverage of prenatal genetic testing is justified by cost-benefit analyses of the number of lives with Down syndrome that are prevented from being born. These studies compare the millions of dollars used to cover prenatal tests versus what they figure are the even more millions of dollars lives with Down syndrome “cost” the public healthcare system. These analyses are then pitched to lawmakers and state program directors to show that by “investing” in prenatal genetic testing, they can ultimately “save” the public healthcare system. These “savings” are due to prenatal tests identifying a pregnancy as positive for Down syndrome and then that pregnancy being selectively aborted. In states like New Mexico, Medicaid will even pay for that.
So, rather than propose cutting millions of dollars to a non-profit that helps hundreds of thousands of children in our nation’s schools, perhaps the Trump Administration would instead propose cuts to funding private, for-profit labs and their prenatal genetic tests that justify the funding by eliminating future Special Olympic athletes as a “savings” to the system.
Excellent alternative!