The number of people struggling without access to basic health care during these tough economic times has skyrocketed from 56 million to 60 million in just two years, according to the National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC). A report released by the association Primary Care Access: An Essential Building Block of Health Reformattributes the growth of the "medically disenfranchised" population to a host of factors that include a worsening shortage of primary care doctors in needy communities and a growing scarcity of providers willing to treat the uninsured or publicly insured. The number of medically disenfranchised grew three times faster than the total U.S. population, a clear sign that that access to primary care is worsening and reaching middle-class American families, even among those who do have insurance. The findings were released at a briefing with representatives from Community Health Centers around the country, which have received $2 billion in federal help from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) to deal with increased demand from the uninsured. With plant closings and job losses mounting from the economic downturn, people who find themselves suddenly uninsured or underinsured are relying more than ever on a place where insurance status doesn’t matter&mdahs;at a Community Health Center.
"Keeping pace with escalating demand is a perilous challenge for safety net providers, even for health centers with their proven record of success in narrowing health disparities and providing significant returns on taxpayer investments—but it has rarely if ever been as challenging as it is today," said Dan Hawkins, senior vice president for policy and programs at NACHC.
"The medically disenfranchised can be anyone in these difficult times. Even people who have an insurance card can find themselves without a place to go for care if they have a common cold or high blood pressure," said Lolita A. Lopez, president and CEO of Westside Family Healthcare in Wilmington, Delaware. "Most often it is low-income, uninsured, and minority populations who are disproportionately affected, but all of us pay the price in some way, whether it is through higher health care costs or hospital emergency rooms congested with patients who don’t have a family doctor."
The growth among the medically disenfranchised would be much worse were it not for the growth of health centers, which added 2 million people to their patient rolls over the same two-year period. The NACHC report makes the case that health reform and continued targeted investment can make significant and meaningful improvements in the accessibility and quality of primary care now and into the future by making a primary health care home for everyone in America an explicit goal of health reform, investing in the workforce, and stemming the erosion of primary care through payment reforms that reward results and improvements in quality care.
Health centers provide high-quality, affordable preventive and primary care to more than 18 million people in rural and urban communities. Another study showed that average medical expenses for health center patients are 41 percent lower than for patients who seek medical care elsewhere, meaning that health centers save the health care system up to $18 billion per year. Despite the successful record of health centers in keeping down health care costs and unnecessary hospitalizations, several challenges remain in terms of keeping pace with demand among low-income, uninsured and chronically ill populations and maintaining the workforce needed to meet demand.
Source: National Association of Community Health Centers