Cite as: 526 U. S. 66 (1999)
Opinion of the Court
"medical services" in § 1401(a)(17) does not embrace all forms of care that might loosely be described as "medical" in other contexts, such as a claim for an income tax deduction. See 26 U. S. C. § 213(d)(1) (1994 ed. and Supp. II) (defining "medical care").
The District does not ask us to define the term so broadly. Indeed, the District does not argue that any of the items of care that Garret needs, considered individually, could be excluded from the scope of 20 U. S. C. § 1401(a)(17).7 It could not make such an argument, considering that one of the services Garret needs (catheterization) was at issue in Tatro, and the others may be provided competently by a school nurse or other trained personnel. See App. to Pet. for Cert. 15a, 52a. As the ALJ concluded, most of the requested services are already provided by the District to other students, and the in-school care necessitated by Garret's ventilator dependency does not demand the training, knowledge, and judgment of a licensed physician. Id., at 51a-52a. While more extensive, the in-school services Garret needs are no more "medical" than was the care sought in Tatro.
Instead, the District points to the combined and continuous character of the required care, and proposes a test under which the outcome in any particular case would "depend upon a series of factors, such as [1] whether the care is continuous or intermittent, [2] whether existing school health personnel can provide the service, [3] the cost of the service, and [4] the potential consequences if the service is not properly performed." Brief for Petitioner 11; see also id., at 34-35.
The District's multifactor test is not supported by any recognized source of legal authority. The proposed factors can be found in neither the text of the statute nor the regulations that we upheld in Tatro. Moreover, the District offers no explanation why these characteristics make one service
7 See Tr. of Oral Arg. 4-5, 12.
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