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| Consultant Thinks Now is Good Time for Federally-Qualified Health Clinics |
FIRST REPORTED 3:00pm 1/27/10 A consultant working with the Knox County Health Department on its efforts to get its community health clinic to become a federally-qualified health clinic says regardless of where health care reform ends up, one thing may remain constant: the need for the funding and creation of such clinics, and that can be in the health department's favor.
Susan Greene led a community meeting Wednesday morning on the proposed FQHC as part of efforts to determine if one is needed in the county and what it should have if approved.
Greene runs a Chicago-based firm that helps health-related entities with such applications, and says if reform fails which she says has been speculated about since the last week's Massachusetts special election for Senator, the president has really no choice but to keep funding such clinics.
"(President Obama) has said if health reform fails, the only solution they have in the interim is to still increase FQHC's," Greene said, "because at least primary care for the uninsured is provided for."
Greene says she might have said as soon as a week ago, though, that the picture for federally-qualified health clinics is great, since it was thought that the Senate health care reform bill would be the one that ultimately ended up on Obama's desk to sign, given that it has FQHC money in it.
But she says she believes there will still be two-point-five billion dollars available for those clinics over the next three years, no matter what.
There are a thousand such clinics in the country, however, only 36 in Illinois.
(Susan Greene, standing, leads a discussion about Federally-Qualified Health Clinics Wednesday hosted by the Knox County Health Department at the Kensington.)
(Attendees fill out a survey regarding Federally-Qualified Health Clinics Wednesday morning. WGIL News Story and Photos by Will Stevenson.) |
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| 01 27 10 by Newsroom |
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