By: NACHC Staff

Today thousands of health center advocates climbed into buses and rolled from the site of the 2010 NACHC Policy and Issues Forum southeast to Capitol Hill, where they made the case for continued investment in America’s Health Centers.

Our advocates were so busy with Hill Day that they might not have caught the powerful statement in support of health centers made at President Obama’s live, televised health care summit by Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC), the House Majority Whip!  See the partial transcript below or check out the video.

Let me set this up by sharing with you a conversation I had on yesterday with the administrators of the Dillon McLeod Health Care Center in Dillon, South Carolina….

They told me that their emergency room activities have doubled over the past several years. And they were looking for some assistance to expand the size of that emergency room.

When I began to question them as to why, in this small county — not in my district — they had had such a doubling, what it turns out is that they told me that 31 percent of the people that they treat in that emergency room are not there for emergencies. They are there for primary care.

Now, I think that, no matter what kind of plan we develop, there will be many people left uncovered, and we need a safety net for those people.

I believe that the one way to provide that safety net and to take care of all of those people who may be uncovered and those people who have $2,000 deductibles with primary care is for a significant expansion of community health centers.