Obama & community health centers
Richard Moore
"These health centers will expand access to care by helping people in need - many with no health insurance - obtain access to comprehensive primary and preventive health care services," Obama told a news conference.
Community health centers, which help people even if they can't pay for the services. sounds like a wonderful idea. We must however consider what these health centers really mean, within the context of Obama's overall approach to health care 'reform'. Obama goes on:
"That helps relieve the burden on emergency rooms across the country, which have become primary care clinics for too many who lack coverage - often at taxpayer expense."
In other words, the centers will relieve the private medical sector (which operates most emergency rooms) of the burden of servicing the most unprofitable patients. Obama is helping the private sector to 'externalize its costs' and 'internalize it profits' -- at our expense. Nonetheless this could still be a very good thing for users of the centers, and well worth the public investment -- depending on the quality of the care provided. In that regard, consider this article...
Obama Pushes Centers as One Focus of Health Reform
by: Maggie Fox, Reuters
Washington - President Barack Obama has been vague about details of his health care reform efforts, but he provided a hint on Monday of one direction he could take - community health centers.
As he announced the nominations of his two top health executives, Obama highlighted the allocation of $155 million to 126 community health centers as part of the $787 billion economic stimulus package.
"These health centers will expand access to care by helping people in need - many with no health insurance - obtain access to comprehensive primary and preventive health care services," Obama told a news conference.
"That helps relieve the burden on emergency rooms across the country, which have become primary care clinics for too many who lack coverage - often at taxpayer expense."
The Health and Human Services Department said the money would create 5,500 new jobs and help provide health care to an estimated 750,000 low-income Americans.
Gary Pickens, chief research officer for the health care business of Thomson Reuters, a division of Thomson Reuters Corp, agreed the centers relieve overburdened hospitals.
"Hospitals currently have overcrowded emergency departments and would probably prefer to see care given in more appropriate settings for conditions that don't require hospitalization," Pickens said in a telephone interview.
One of the repeated criticisms of the U.S. health care system is that patients are often sent to emergency departments for routine care if, for instance, their physician's office is closed or if they do not have health insurance.
Costs in emergency rooms are much higher than in a clinic, and politicians who oppose any kind of a move toward nationalized health care support the idea of using retail and community clinics to fill in some of the gaps.
"Over the next two years, a total of $2 billion in Recovery Act funding will be invested in Community Health Centers to support renovations and repairs, investments in health information technology, and critically needed health care services," HHS said in a statement.
It said one out of 19 American uses federal government funded health clinic for primary health care - and such clinics treated 16 million people in 2008, including dental and mental health care.
"Nearly forty percent of patients treated have no health insurance and one-third are children," HHS said.
Obama named Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius to head HHS on Monday and former Clinton Medicare official Nancy DeParle as the head of a new White House office of health reform. He plans a health care summit of lawmakers, lobbyists and industry on Thursday.
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