Opinion: Community Health Centers and the Federal Budget - Who Speaks for You?
Submitted by editor on Fri, 03/18/2011 - 1:49pm
By Thomas G. Chase
The U.S. House of Representatives has passed a repeal of Health Reform. Additionally, they passed budget cuts of $1.3 billion to existing funding for Community Health Centers (CHC’s).
Over the last 45 years, CHC’s have grown to provide primary care access to 20 million Americans. Study after study has shown that primary care in a CHC is less expensive and provides more reliable health outcomes than any other alternative for those with access challenges. Who is speaking for the needs of these patients?
Nevada Health Centers (NVHC) operates throughout the state and had over 175,000 patient encounters in 2010. Most of our clinics are in places where there is no other doctor. Who speaks for them? NVHC also operates a statewide Mammovan, serving communities like McGill, McDermitt and Duckwater. Who speaks for them? A repeal of Health Reform returns control of your health to insurance company executives and state administrators. Who is speaking for you?
NVHC delegates its authority for the Vaccine for Children (VFC) program statewide? Who will speak for the children who will no longer have access to vaccinations if our statewide presence goes away?
The decades of progress in increased access and public health community service provided by NVHC is at risk. We estimate our share of the cuts, for our patient population, is approximately $3.25 million, nearly half of our continuation funding.
Call or write your congressional representative and Senators:
— Tell them we need more doctors and community health centers for Nevada.
— Tell them we need to continue to fund expanded Medicaid eligibility in the state that has been hardest hit by the recession and we need to continue a pathway toward insurance for as many as 25 million Americans, including as many as 250,000 Nevadans.
— Tell them we need our neighbors and our children insured without restriction.
— Tell them the new mandates for preventative care are important to you.
— Tell them you are tired of being taxed, in your premiums, for the costs of emergency room care for the uninsured.
— Tell them we want a health system that works for all 308 million patients, not just the several hundred insurance companies and their C level executives.
— Tell them that the Medicare enhancements are important to you, your parents and grandparents.
— Tell them we expect them to evaluate Health Reform based on facts and evidence, not emotion and ideological rhetoric.
— Finally, tell them that, after 45 years, we can evaluate the effectiveness of Community Health Centers. Tell them Health Centers are consistently rated by the Congressional Budget Office in the top ten of all federal programs. Tell them that a program this successful is important to your community, be it Amargosa Valley, Austin, Beatty, Carlin, Carson City, Crescent Valley, Elko, Eureka, Jackpot, Las Vegas, North Las Vegas, Reno, West Wendover or Virginia City. If you don’t tell them, who will speak for you?
— Writer Thomas G. Chase is Chief Executive Officer of Nevada Health Centers, Inc., located at 1802 N. Carson Street in Carson City. He can be reached at (775) 888-6614 or by e-mail, tchase@nvhealthcenters.org
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