Op-ed: Fix the Funding Cliff

Submitted by: Dr. Lyle Ignace – CEO of Gerald L. Ignace Indian Health Center; Dr. Tito Izard – CEO of Milwaukee Health Services; Constance Palmer – CEO of Outreach Community Health Center; Dr. Julie Schuller – CEO of Sixteenth Street Community Health Centers; Jenni Sevenich – CEO of Progressive Community Health Center

The waiting room of our health centers are thousands of miles from the U.S. Capitol, but what happens under that dome will have a direct impact on our patients.

Community Health Centers like ours bring a unique and important perspective to the national conversation on health care. Milwaukee’s five Community Health Centers are part of a nationwide network that started more than 50 years ago to provide quality primary care in places where doctors and services were scarce or non-existent.

Driven by a shared belief in high quality, accessible healthcare that minimizes linguistic, cultural and economic barriers, the Community Health Centers in Milwaukee are committed to building healthy communities. This means more than health care; it means closing access gaps, narrowing health disparities, and partnering with individuals and families to obtain the support, services, and empowerment they need to improve their health and well-being.

There is little doubt that health centers have contributed significantly to improving patient health and to saving money. We work together with the health systems in Milwaukee to make sure that every patient has a primary care home, and uses primary care more than they use the emergency department. This saves money for both our patients and the health care system as a whole.

We are able to look beyond the walls of conventional medicine to address the factors that impact the lion’s share of our health. We are problem-solvers. We understand that homelessness, lack of nutrition, stress or unemployment and drug addiction have a direct impact on health, and we work with our patients to improve all of these conditions.

For decades our health centers have drawn bipartisan support from U.S. Presidents and lawmakers because of our record of success. Yet, such broad support may not be enough to ensure we can continue to serve people who need affordable primary care in the future.

If Congress fails to act by September 30, Health Centers across the country will lose 70% of their federal funding. In Milwaukee, that represents over $9 million spent on treating patients who are uninsured or underinsured.

The loss of this funding would be felt by our community. Some effects would be immediate, others would be felt over time in the reduction of services and contracts within the community.

Congress has many critical items in front of them in September: hurricane relief, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, stabilizing the individual health insurance market – and we implore them to see Community Health Center funding as urgent.

Health Centers are problem-solvers. We have a strong history of bi-partisan support – now we need our leaders in Congress to be problem-solvers, and work to fix the funding cliff. Milwaukee is depending on it.