Health-care Model: Little Rock Insures For Drug Treatment

By Jonathan Weisman

When the 26,000 students in the Little Rock, Ark., public schools began classes this month, they became the first students in the nation to be automatically covered by a free district insurance policy for the often unmanageable costs of drug- and alcohol-abuse treatment.

The unique program, coordinated by city officials, the Little Rock school district, and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Arkansas, may have wide-ranging implications, not only for substance-abuse programs but for national efforts to pull uninsured children under the health-care umbrella.

"If you look at what's going on nationally, everyone is looking at revamping health insurance,'' said Gil Buchanan, a former Arkansas chapter president of the American Academy of Pediatrics. "This is a good way to take a particular problem and address it...