First few Article Sentences
“For every one percent increase in unemployment, more than one million people lose their health insurance and another million people enroll in Medicaid and SCHIP.” The final statement of the National Association of Community Health Center’s (NACHC) one-page summary on the economic stimulus probably should be the first. If more people could truly absorb that, perhaps the concept of healthcare reform wouldn’t be so controversial.
While that may be overly optimistic, understanding the demand may help the public appreciate the vital role that Community Health Centers play, and must continue to play, in healthcare. Consider how hard recession has hit healthcare budgets, with Washington State’s alone seeing over $1.2 billion in cuts. That’s why the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA, aka “the stimulus package”), has allocated $2 billion to health centers for their infrastructure and ongoing operations, as well as to help them cope with rising patient numbers due to the economic recession. Over two years, grant award distributions will go out, and predictions are that by 2011, an additional 3 million patients will have received care.