Indiana Medicaid: Indiana's ABA Cuts: Kids Pushed to Unprepared Schools

Matthew Colley

02 Jul 2026 — 2 min read

The Domino Effect: How Indiana’s Medicaid ABA Cuts Are Pushing Kids into Unprepared Classrooms

A System on the Brink

A quiet crisis is unfolding across Indiana, engineered by state-level policy changes that are dismantling a critical support system for thousands of families. Recent overhauls to Medicaid reimbursement for Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) therapy are not just line-item adjustments; they are creating a domino effect, triggering the collapse of care infrastructure and pushing our most vulnerable children into public schools that are critically unprepared for the influx.

The Policy Gauntlet

The damage stems from a trio of devastating policy shifts targeting ABA therapy, the gold-standard intervention for many autistic and neurodivergent children. State officials have enacted:

Drastic, phased-in reimbursement rate cuts that make it financially impossible for many clinics to keep their doors open.
Arbitrary caps on the number of weekly service hours, gutting the intensive, one-on-one support that produces the best outcomes.
Strict new lifetime limits on therapy, forcing children out of care based on a bureaucratic timeline, not clinical need.

Together, these actions have rendered intensive, center-based care an unsustainable model. The fallout has been swift and severe.

From Therapy Centers to Overwhelmed Classrooms

Clinics are downsizing or closing entirely, laying off highly trained therapists and behavior technicians. This has forced thousands of children who were thriving in specialized environments back into the public school system full-time, often years before they are developmentally ready. These children are losing access to the consistent, high-intensity therapy that helps them build communication, social, and life skills.

Our schools, already struggling with post-pandemic budget shortfalls and staffing shortages, are now bearing the brunt of this policy failure. Special education departments lack the funding, specialized staff, and physical resources to replicate the support these children have lost. The result is a cascading crisis: overwhelmed teachers, disruptive classroom environments, and a generation of neurodivergent children being denied the tools they need to succeed.

Take Action Now

This is an untenable situation created by shortsighted policy. We cannot allow our children and educators to pay the price. Moms, parents, and teachers directly affected by these cuts must organize. Use the link below to register for the Hoosier Action Coalition. Your registration will provide us with the critical data needed to deploy targeted advocacy metrics and demand that state legislators reverse these destructive cuts immediately.

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