Federal stimulus dollars have been directed by Congress to community health centers. Health Centers are economic engines that provide hundreds of thousands of health care jobs nation wide as well as stimulus to the economy through purchasing of supplies and equipment.
The American Investment and Recovery Act of 2009 includes (read more):
$2 billion for community health centers. There are over 1,000 community health centers nation wide with over 7,000 service sites. For example, Erie Family Health Center is 1 community health center with 8 service locations.
Included in the $2 billion mentioned above:
$340 million has just been announced for health centers to immediately increase the number of uninsured patients served by hiring more health care workers, increasing hours of operation, and increasing existing health center services. Applications are due on March 16th to compete for these funds.
$155 million has been already awarded to community health centers who applied to launch new sites last year and were not funded. In Illinois, the following community health centers just received $1.3 million each to add a new service site: Lawndale Christian Health Center (Chicago), Lake County Health Department/Community Health Center, Community Health and Emergency Services (Carbondale), and Friend Family Health Center (Chicago, and affiliate of the University of Chicago).
$1.5 billion for construction, renovation, equipment and health information technology systems at the community health center level. We do not yet know how community health centers will be able to compete for these funds. Buildings such as Erie Family Health Center's, Humboldt Park location (Chicago, pictured above) are in need of state of the art upgrades.
Community health centers are cost effective providers of primary health care. Health centers provide primary care for 17 million individuals in the US, over 1 million in Illinois and over 500,000 in the Chicago metro area. Currently at least 45.7 million Americans are uninsured. This does not count the underinsured and those who are not residents of the US but who are workers and their family members who need health care.
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