First diary. Please forgive me for any weird formatting issues (or for any redundancy - I didn't see any diaries covering this, but I may have missed one).
Very briefly, the community health centers where over 33 million Americans receive their health care are at serious risk of becoming collateral damage in Congress' destructive fixation on deficit reduction. In searching for earlier diaries on this, I found this concise summary by shendandoah blue (ah... how do I make a poster's name link to his/her page?), describing some the role of CHCs in the safety net and giving a clear, easy-to-understand picture of the funding sources that are currently at risk:
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Yesterday, our entire clinic staff listened in on a conference call held by NACHC (National Association of Community Health Centers) detailing further some of the disastrous decisions that have been made, and outlining an organized plan to fight back. NACHC CEO Tom Van Coverden talked about the 600 million dollars of cuts made to the base of the community health center funding, with the intent to cover that loss by plundering money from the ACA first year budget that had been intended to help increase access to an additional 5 million people. The decision was made, he said, "at 10 o'clock, on a Sunday night". When confronted, Obama administration officials and other ACA proponents in Congress were "appalled", as they had not realized community health centers would be affected, and did not realize the implications on the eventual implementation of health care reform. Van Coverden's point was that we can not afford to have any more mistakes of this magnitude, and that another 2.5 cuts of this size will defund community health centers entirely. He repeatedly stressed the importance of educating our friends, our families, and our communities on the possible implications of these cuts. On top of the cuts that have already been made, there are now potentially disastrous proposals to change Medicaid (block grants, caps, changes to PPS as outlined by shenandoah blue in the diary linked above) that we absolutely can not allow to happen, whether intentionally or inadvertently. The next two speakers then detailed the following plan of action:
NACHC has designated today, June 30th, as National Medicaid Mobilization Day for Community Health Centers. Supporters of our community health centers are urged to call their members of Congress, as well as the White House, with messages of support for our CHCs, and with pleas to not allow devastating cuts to Medicaid during negotiations.
The NACHC Advocacy Hotline number is 866-456-3949 (calls are free). Calls need to be made by 5 PM Eastern time.
Once you are connected, you will hear a short message asking you to contact your Members of Congress and the White House to deliver this message: “Please do not undermine the successful Health Centers program as you negotiate Medicaid changes and cuts to the federal budget. The health and lives of our families and our neighbors should not be negotiated away. I am counting on your support for my Health Center”.
At the end of the recorded message you will enter your zip code to be connected to your Representative and Senators.
You will only need to call the NACHC Advocacy Hotline ONE time! Once you complete the first conversation you can stay on the line to be connected to your next Member of Congress. REMEMBER TO STAY ON THE LINE AT THE END OF YOUR FIRST CONVERSATION TO BE CONNECTED TO YOUR REPRESENTATIVE OR SENATOR(S).
Once you have spoken to your Members of Congress Advocates should call and leave a message on the White House Comment line by dialing: 202-456-1111 by 2pm. It may take a few minutes to be connected, but you WILL be connected to a live operator with whom you can leave your message.
Anyone interested in hearing the conference call from this morning can access it here:
http://www.nachc.com/...