NACHC sent the White House Office of Management and Budget a letter requesting that the Biden administration include in any supplemental funding request from Congress a set-aside for Community Health Centers affected by Hurricane Helene, Hurricane Milton, and other disasters since 2022.
“As safety net providers operating on razor-thin margins, health centers – and their communities – will struggle to recover from these disasters without dedicated federal support.
Community Health Centers are the best, most diverse, most innovative, and most resilient part of our nation’s health system. For nearly 60 years, health centers have provided high-quality, comprehensive, affordable primary and preventive care, dental, behavioral health, pharmacy, vision, and other essential health services to America’s most vulnerable, medically underserved patients in urban, rural, suburban, frontier, and island communities. Today, health centers serve 1 in 10 Americans at over 16,000 locations. Health centers recently reached a historic milestone of serving over 32.5 million patients, including nearly 10 million children and over 400,000 veterans. They provide care to one in seven rural residents, one in nine Medicaid beneficiaries, and one in five uninsured persons.
Hurricanes Helene and Milton affected dozens of health centers across the southeast of our country, disrupting operations and causing severe hardship for health centers’ staff and patients. When health centers are knocked offline, diabetic patients miss appointments, pregnant women miss prenatal visits, children miss routine vaccinations, and behavioral health patients have their therapy interrupted. These interruptions in care not only worsen patients’ health but also lead to an increase in avoidable hospitalizations and emergency department visits, further straining a healthcare system that is otherwise focused on emergency response.”
Related:
Read NACHC’s coverage of health centers and disaster response.