You may recall the recent Carolina Journal story by Sara Burrows reporting on a home visitation program under consideration by a state task force on childhood obesity. Today, we see news that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is adding $69.7 million to its program allowing such visits provides grants to states
to deliver critical health, development, early learning and family support services to children and families who enroll in the program. The program provides voluntary home visits in communities identified by the state grantees for eligible families who welcome education and support to strengthen their relationship with their infants and young children. The program helps to ensure women have a healthy pregnancy.
The program had spent $224 million to date, and 13 states received grants under the expanded funding (North Carolina is not one of those getting funding from the most recent expansion).
As Sara noted, even though North Carolina’s program is targeted at Medicaid recipients,
According to Examiner.com, attorney Kent Masterson Brown, who was a lead attorney for the plaintiffs in one of the federal lawsuits challenging the federal health care law, said that the home visitation provision could be extended to include any family, not just those on Medicaid.
Today’s announcement would seem to confirm Brown’s assertion.
