Community health centers are the backbone of our state and nation’s health care systems.
Anyone, regardless of whether they have insurance, can walk into a community health center and receive the care that they need. These providers are keeping our communities healthy, while driving down health care expenses.
In fact, our nation’s health centers generate $24 billion in savings every year.
Here in Illinois, the spending for Medicaid patients in community health centers is 27% lower than for those who receive care in other settings.
And in Chicago, under Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s recent transition report, it is recommended that more resources be dedicated toward the integrated model of primary and behavioral health, specifically community health centers, to reduce stigma around mental health and substance use disorders.
These health care providers, who are essential to communities, are now in limbo without guaranteed funding. Community health centers are predominantly funded (72%) by the Community Health Center Fund (CHCF), which is set to expire Sept. 30 unless Congress acts now.
Shamefully, this is not the first time these caregivers have been thrown to the wayside and left without.
In 2017, community health centers went without funding for five months, causing reductions in staff, limited programs and services and decreased hours — all of which diminish care for people who need it.
Today, these health centers are already gearing up for another funding gap, which dramatically impacts the national healthcare ecosystem, not to mention the 29 million people directly served by them.
According to the 2019 KFF/Geiger Gibson Community Health Center Survey report released earlier this month, 59% of health centers are either already implementing or considering a hiring freeze, as a result of the impending funding halt.
In addition, 42% are considering limiting staff hours or even laying them off completely. Others (35%) are reducing hours of operation or even closing one or more sites (26%).
Perhaps even more troubling is that 20% of community health centers are looking to their mental health services for potential cuts and 17% are targeting addiction treatment services.
For Illinois, a funding gap would jeopardize the ability to care for 1.4 million patients served through 380 sites statewide. Community health centers fulfill a major gap in our health care system and without them, there would be a huge ripple effect, felt across the entire health care landscape.
Everyone has a stake in the ground when it comes to community health care. Call Congress and urge your representative to pass the CHCF funding before it expires on Sept. 30.
Jordan Powell, President & CEO, Illinois Primary Health Care Association
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Support labor, not just management
Over the past few days, the traditional part of the working class paper has only published letters to the editor that are supportive of management and not labor.
Perhaps our city is so business-driven that the concept of labor, in the form of teachers demanding what the children they serve need, is so foreign that “ the working class” is not clearly understood.
Teachers in DuPage County and teachers in Chicago were castigated for seeking to strike. The right to strike in order to seek redress is guaranteed by U. S. labor law and should not be dismissed and denigrated so lightly.
In both letters, the usual trope casting the teachers as being selfish is of course employed to demonize teachers.
This canard is consistently used against all forms of labor, not only teachers, by those who seek to oppress the working class.
Edward Juillard, West Beverley
