Primary Care for Nevadans Faces Funding Cliff
Submitted by Carson Now Reader on Fri, 10/24/2014 - 9:29am
Nevada’s Community Health Centers are extolling bipartisan Members of Congress who are calling for a solution to looming funding reductions that will affect the patients they serve.
The efforts on Capitol Hill come as operational support for more than 1,300 Health Center organizations serving approximately 23 million patients nationwide is threatened.
The National Association of Community Health Centers estimates that more than 13,000 patients could lose access to care in the state of Nevada, even as demand for primary care increases and is expected to climb.
A bipartisan solution is needed to prevent a loss of access to primary and preventive care for millions of patients who often have no other place to turn.
Letters spearheaded by U.S. Senators Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), Roy Blunt (R-MO), Tom Carper (D-DE) and John Boozman (R-AR) and in the House by U.S. Representatives Kay Granger (R-TX), Gene Green (D-TX), Leonard Lance (R-NJ) and David Price (D-NC) call for a resolution to the Community Health Center funding cliff. Signors note that funding reductions “would be felt beyond health centers themselves” and predict higher healthcare costs as well as reduced access for millions of families and job losses.
Health centers are community-directed, but rely on federal support to deliver care to communities and patients in need. One major source of this support, the Health centers fund, is set to expire next year, leading to funding reductions of up to 70 percent. Without Congressional action, health centers across the nation will be forced to consider site closures, staff layoffs, and a loss of primary care for millions, including the more than one-quarter-million of our nation’s veterans who depend on health centers for care.
Nevada’s CHCs served over 70,000 Nevadans last year, 352 of those patients were veterans. Health centers provide affordable healthcare without adding to the budget deficit. Health Centers save Nevada’s health care system $80 million a year. Because health center patients have a regular source of primary care, and stay healthy, they visit the hospital less, including crowded emergency rooms. Healthy Nevadans make for healthier workplaces with fewer days of work missed due to illness.
Health centers are a proven model that has delivered multiple returns on the public and private investment for the past 50 years. To learn more about the mission and accomplishments of Community Health Centers please visit the website of the Nevada Primary Care Association at www.nvpca.org and click on the Access is the Answer banner.
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