Published: April 20, 2009
Speaker Pelosi Visits Florida Health Center
Federal stimulus package provides needed economic
boost to primary care services for Floridians
TALLAHASSEE – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi joined Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz today at the Broward Community and Family Health Center to discuss the positive impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act on local communities, which granted more than $10 million in federal stimulus money to fund eight new or expanded community health centers across Florida.
“It is such an honor to have House Speaker Pelosi here with us today to show the support of the federal government in providing health care services for people in need,” said Andrew Behrman, president of the Florida Association of Community Health Centers (FACHC). “The access to and investment in primary care is essential to the economic health of our state and our country.”
The $2.6 million in federal stimulus money granted to South Florida health centers will help build a new location in West Park, Florida, that will increase access to community health care and provide services for 6,600 underserved South Floridians while saving or creating 15 local jobs.
And while community health advocates say the federal dollars are a good start, the state could realize even bigger returns by providing more support to community health centers. Such centers are much more cost-effective vehicles for delivering primary care and managing chronic diseases than the emergency rooms where many of Florida’s uninsured seek medical treatment today.
The Florida Association of Community Health Centers has been urging lawmakers to raise the state’s current investment of $15.3 million to $31 million this year. According to a new report by George Washington University Medical Center, which can be found at www.fachc.org, such an investment could save the state more than $700 million because of improved access to primary care and reduced emergency care.
“Florida has an opportunity to vault from its regrettable position as a state with among the highest rates of uninsured residents into a national leader in health care access by restructuring health care spending to invest in primary care,” said Behrman. “Florida’s community health centers provide care for the uninsured, and they do it at much lower cost and achieve much better results than the alternative of simply forcing the uninsured to seek emergency care at hospitals.”
Even without new dollars, the state could dramatically expand access to cost-effective primary care by allocating more Low Income Pool (LIP) funds to Florida community health centers. If lawmakers go further and pass a $1 per pack increase on cigarettes, advocates also say Florida could lead the nation in providing comprehensive primary and preventive health care to its citizens – a position that would reap huge savings.
People served by Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) show lower rates of costly health conditions and significantly lower rates of preventable hospitalizations and emergency room visits. Among the report’s other findings:
Having a primary care physician as the first contact decreases the likelihood of specialty care and increases the appropriateness of care, including:
• Fewer hospitalizations,
• Fewer diagnostic tests,
• Less emergency care,
• More preventive care,
• Fewer prescriptions,
• Earlier detection of melanoma, breast, colon and cervical cancer, and
• A lower mortality rate over a five-year period than patients whose source of care was a specialist.
Access to primary care reduces the health differentials between rich and poor, including:
• Seventeen percent lower post-neonatal mortality rate compared to the population mean, while those with little access to primary care showed a seven percent higher rate of post-neonatal mortality.
• Reduced mortality, particularly among African Americans who have access to primary care.
Overall better health outcomes for communities with an appropriate supply of primary care physicians, including:
• Lower rates of mortality from cancer and stroke, infant mortality, heart disease and low birth weight,
• Two percent lower mortality from all causes; three percent lower mortality from cancer and four percent lower mortality from heart disease in rural communities.
Several lawmakers already have voiced support of this shift in funds to support primary care, including Rep. Ed Homan (R) Temple Terrace, Rep. Kevin Ambler (R) Tampa, Rep. Juan Zapata (R) Miami, Rep. Alan Hays (R) Umatilla, Rep. Yolly Roberson (D) N Miami Beach and Sen. Nan Rich (D) Sunrise.
Besides making sure Floridians have access to primary care through community health centers, Behrman said the state must grow its supply of family practice physicians by increasing the Medicaid reimbursement rate for primary care and ensuring the state has adequate primary care residency programs.
“If we want medical students to pursue careers in primary care medicine, we need to make sure they can pay off their medical school debt and live on what they earn,” Behrman said. “If we continue to ship doctors out of state for their residencies, chances are we will never get them back to Florida to practice. Investing in primary care is the smartest, most cost-effective health care investment we can make.”
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