FQHCs

We made it to October without letting Congressional Republicans ravage our healthcare system, so that's a relief. However, the fact that it's October also means funding for the Children's Health Insurance Program and federally qualified health centers has expired ... and Congress has been putting so much energy into trying to gut Medicaid and further restricting women's access to abortions that they neglected to renew funding for these two immensely popular bipartisan programs. Instead of funding these programs because they're crucial sources of coverage and care for large portions of our…
The American Public Health Association (APHA) adopted 11 new policy statements which will guide its work in the coming years. They include: Raising the minimum wage: The policy calls on states to increase their minimum wage, index the minimum wage to inflation, and prohibit state-government preemption of municipal minimum wage policies. Among other things, the new APHA policy also recommends research on the effects of living wages on public assistance budgets. Reducing exposure to highly fluorinated chemicals: The policy calls on Congress to fund research on alternatives to perfluoroalkyl and…
I've written before about the importance of the Affordable Care Act's Medicaid expansion and about the role of community health centers in delivering primary care to underserved patients. With roughly half of the states declining the now-optional Medicaid expansion and an uncertain federal funding environment, though, the extent to which health centers will be able to serve the newly insured is up in the air. A new report from the Geiger Gibson/RCHN Community Health Foundation Research Collaborative puts some numbers on the variability. Under different Medicaid expansion and funding scenarios…