Summary: Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on 10 states' use of federal maternal and child health (MCH) services block grant funds to support their children's medical services (CMS) programs.
GAO found that: (1) although Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Mississippi, Ohio, and Texas all allocated the federal funds to their CMS programs, only Arizona and Ohio designated MCH funds for specific CMS activities, with Arizona almost exclusively earmarking funds for personnel and administrative costs and Ohio designating MCH funds for administration and medical case management; (2) in 1987, the 10 states spent about $242 million for CMS programs serving a total of 261,000 children, with states supplying about 74 percent of funding and MCH block grants providing about 11 percent of funding; (3) most of the CMS programs provided such medical services as physician home and office visits, medical equipment and supplies, medications, skilled nursing visits, and rehabilitative and other types of therapy; (4) some states provided such support services as respite care, homemaker services, transportation, day care, counseling, and case management; (5) while states generally provided both diagnostic care and medical treatment, they did not allocate expenses by those categories; and (6) CMS programs covered a wide array of medical conditions with few restrictions on who could be served, although eligibility criteria varied by age, income, and medical prognosis.
