This past week, the House passed legislation to reauthorize the Health Centers Renewal Act which ensures health centers are open to all in a community regardless of their ability to pay. The centers provide access to comprehensive primary and preventive health care services. The community health centers legislation, H.R. 5573 passed by a vote of 424-3.

“The effectiveness of community health centers lies in their preventive health care services,” said Congressman Michael C. Burgess, M.D. (TX-26). “Through the centers, chronic diseases such as asthma, cardiovascular disease and diabetes can be better managed before they turn into expensive emergency situations.”

The Act would authorize $10 billion in funding for the federal community health centers program between fiscal 2007 and 2011. The measure would also preserve other elements of the program, including the 51 percent patient majority governing board.

Both the Institute of Medicine and General Accountability Office have praised health centers for their effective management of chronic illnesses. In addition community health centers are estimated to be responsible for cutting infant mortality rates in the communities they serve by as much as 10%

“Infant mortality rates are appalling,” said Rep. Michael Burgess. “As we have seen in various news reports, the infant mortality rate in Tarrant County are higher than the national average. This reauthorization was critical because these centers provide the necessary health care for low income mothers-to-be who might not otherwise seek much-needed pre-natal services. The centers provide a trusted, community medical home.”

Congressman Michael Burgess has spent considerable time over the last year devoting awareness to the importance of streamlining the application process for federally qualified health centers commonly called FQHCs.

On May 4, Tarrant County Commissioner Roy C. Brooks appeared before the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health panel to push for a community health center to serve low-income and uninsured residents in southeast Fort Worth. Congressman Burgess sits on the panel in Washington. Together, Rep. Burgess and Commissioner Brooks have been working with Tarrant County hospital officials and community leaders to apply for federal approval of a community center in a section of southeast Fort Worth where they say additional health services are desperately needed.

“One of the things I learned last year with the large number of evacuees that came to my district from Louisiana was that it takes a long time to set up a federally qualified health center,” said Congressman Burgess. “For that reason, I worked to include specific language in the Health Centers Renewal Act of 2006 to ease the process and ensure Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) uses all the tools it has at it’s disposal to increase access to health care. If we provide flexibility, we can mitigate the rising cost of health care in the hospital emergency rooms where uninsured patients currently go for treatment.” The bill passed by the House of Representatives now moves to the Senate for consideration.