Study: Community Health Centers Filling Medical Coverage Gaps
(Washington, DC) -- Community health centers are filling medical gaps for the uninsured at a bargain price for taxpayers. Researchers at the University of Chicago looked at the nation's 12-hundred centers that provide medical and mental health services from rural outposts to inner cities and in between. From 1996 to 2006, researchers found an explosion in people's reliance on community health centers and on the types and number of services offered. Every million dollars of federal support led to eight more full-time hires, of which five were doctors or other medical service providers. Private grant dollars led to nine new hires. Community health centers received about two-billion dollars under the federal stimulus bill last year. President Obama's proposed budget adds another 290-million to expand the nation's network of federally funded centers. The study is published in the journal "Health Affairs." |