Findings from Montana State University Update Understanding of Managed Care (Public Health Insurance and Special Education Enrollment): Managed Care

2025 APR 04 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Education Daily Report -- Investigators discuss new findings in Managed Care. According to news reporting out of Bozeman, Montana, by NewsRx editors, research stated, “Children with disabilities face substantial hurdles in obtaining education. Special education (SE) can potentially improve outcomes for these children, but identifying and providing services to eligible students is problematic, particularly for low-income children and children with ‘invisible’ or ‘malleable’ disabilities like dyslexia, anxiety, or ADHD.”

Financial supporters for this research include Montana State University Initiative for Regulation and Applied Economic Analysis, Charles Koch Foundation.

Our news journalists obtained a quote from the research from Montana State University, “At the same time, there is no consensus that SE enrollment is uniformly positive. There are concerns about stigma, bias in the process, and the impact of expanding SE budgets on general education funding. Exploiting variation in expansions to Medicaid eligibility by state, year, and age, we find that increases in Medicaid eligibility generated increased average rates of SE enrollment, with effects concentrated among elementary school children, those with malleable disabilities, and those for whom Medicaid expansions were on the intensive margin (gaining additional years of Medicaid eligibility) rather than in the extensive margin (gaining initial eligibility for Medicaid). At the same time, however, children who had more early childhood Medicaid eligibility before they started elementary school were less likely to be enrolled in SE than their peers, implying that gaining access to Medicaid in early childhood generated access to screening and treatment that reduced the need for SE support in elementary school.”

According to the news editors, the research concluded: “Because federal law requires that Medicaid be the primary payer to schools that provide SE services, the estimates suggest that by dramatically reducing SE enrollment among those with more early childhood Medicaid eligibility and by modestly expanding SE enrollment on the intensive margin, Medicaid expansions likely mitigated the impacts of SE spending on general education budgets.”

This research has been peer-reviewed.

For more information on this research see: Public Health Insurance and Special Education Enrollment. Economics of Education Review, 2025;105. Economics of Education Review can be contacted at: Pergamon-elsevier Science Ltd, The Boulevard, Langford Lane, Kidlington, Oxford OX5 1GB, England. (Elsevier - www.elsevier.com; Economics of Education Review - http://www.journals.elsevier.com/economics-of-education-review/)

Our news journalists report that additional information may be obtained by contacting Wendy Stock, Montana State University, Agricultural Economics and Economy Department, Bozeman, MT 59717, United States.

The direct object identifier (DOI) for that additional information is: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econedurev.2025.102634. This DOI is a link to an online electronic document that is either free or for purchase, and can be your direct source for a journal article and its citation.

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