Since the economic downturn, jobs have been scarce. People are out of work and they are not insured. The health of the jobless and their families is in jeopardy.
More and more, people are turning to community health care centers for medical treatment, which is one of the reasons why Congressman Chris Carney was in Honesdale on Friday for a tour of the Honesdale Family Health Care Center.
“This kind of facility should be the model of all rural community health centers across the country,” Carney said, while touring the center at the Stourbridge Professional Complex on Route 6. The complex also includes a dental health facility and behavioral health center.
The facility is a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC), and this mandate requires the facility, by law, to provide comprehensive primary care services to an underserved area.
“Having community health centers makes health care less expensive in the long run,” Carney said on the tour, which coincides with the 45th annual National Community Health Centers Week. Community health centers accept most insurance policies for patients, and FQHC’s are required to offer sliding fee scales for those who qualify.
The sliding fee allows those who cannot afford to pay for health care to pay what they can. The ability to pay is determined by a patient’s annual income and family size, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
FQHC’s receive funding from the Human Resources and Services Administration.
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) included a $2 billion investment in the nation’s health centers to assist community health centers during the economic downturn. $500 billion of the funding was used to retain jobs in low-income areas and also expand services to new patients.
The remaining $1.5 billion was allocated for facility construction and renovation, equipment and new technologies, according to the National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC).
The economic impact in Pennsylvania was $137,364,142, according to a NACHC fact sheet , which stated 64,956 patients were supported by the ARRA funds, with 34,537 of those patients being uninsured.
Carney said several billion has been set aside for community centers through the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and ARRA, and that he is happy to direct some of that to the local health care facilities in Wayne and Pike counties.
“People don’t have to end up in the emergency room,” he said, but instead can set a routine of medical and dental check-ups, which is a preventative measure.
