We’re pretty proud of our friend and health center leader, Gary Wiltz, MD, who recently appeared on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal to talk about the Congress’s proposed spending cuts to Community Health Centers. Dr. Wiltz is the CEO of Teche Action Board, Inc, a Federally Qualified Health Center in Franklin, LA, a rural parish in Southwest Louisiana. His appearance on the national program comes as Congress considers FY 2011 spending cuts that will force his health center to make severe cutbacks in care for uninsured families, and effectively reduce, if not eliminate primary care services for millions of Americans across the country.
Elsewhere around the country, other health center leaders are taking action and alerting their local press. Some highlights include:
Marc Bellisario, the CEO of Primary Health Solutions Inc., in Cincinnati, OH, writes in the Journal News, “Without Community Health Centers like Primary Health Solutions, very few options remain, forcing patients to use local emergency rooms for primary care. Primary care delivered through the ER is very expensive and still leaves the patient without a medical home for ongoing care.”
NACHC Associate VP Craig Kennedy notes in a letter to the Washington Post that health centers are “a proven, effective program designed to improve health, lower costs and establish local control of health care – ideals shared by politicians as varied as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.).”
Ben Money Jr. president and CEO of the N.C. Community Health Center Association, writes in the Raleigh News and Observer: “But if, in the process, we limit access to health care that low-income and uninsured residents desperately need in these hard times, that’s a bad idea. And if we also eliminate programs that are saving taxpayers’ dollars, that’s even worse.”
A lot of ink is being generated in newspapers all over the country about these proposed spending cuts. We’ll continue to keep you posted.