Thousands would lose health care if Congress lets Family Health Center's funding expire

Congress passed a short-term spending bill on Jan. 22 that extended CHIP funding for six years, but did not include any money for community health centers.

That’s got people like Family Health Center CEO Dian Cooper worried.

Federal grant money for community health centers will run out on March 31, and the latest stopgap spending bill expires on Feb. 8. With Congress still at an impasse over immigration, another short-term spending bill appears increasingly likely.

Cooper says money for the nation’s 1,300-plus community health centers needs to be included in another stopgap spending bill if Congress fails to reach a long-term spending accord.

“Next week will not be a happy scene if something more positive doesn’t happen,” she said in an interview.

While many community health centers across the nation are making contingency plans if Congress fails to act, Cooper said she’s deliberately avoided laying the groundwork for such a scenario.

“I haven’t wanted and my board hasn’t wanted to get deep into contingency planning and then have my staff and patients unduly worried and anxious,” she said. “I’m not saying that I haven’t personally lost a lot of sleep over this, but we’ve been trying to keep it pretty low-key.”

Nevertheless, Cooper said there’s no doubt that Family Health Center would have less capacity to serve patients if its federal funding lapses. The clinic would be forced to cut back on expenses, limit hours, abandon its expansion plans and — in the worst-case scenario — close some of its clinics, she said.

Family Health Care’s seven clinics served roughly 25,000 people throughout Cowlitz, Pacific and Wahkiakum counties last year, Cooper said. Most of those people were on Medicaid or uninsured.

The center stands to lose about $2.1 million in federal grant dollars if Congress fails to act by the March deadline, which represents a little more than 10 percent of Family Health Center’s $20 million annual budget, Cooper said. If that money is lost, about 2,300 patients would lose access to care because Family Health Center would be forced to lay off providers and cut its hours, she said.

Cooper said she’s already reached out to Southwest Washington Congresswoman Jaime Herrera Beutler’s staff in Vancouver about the need to restore federal fending.

“I know firsthand that community health centers like Cowlitz Family Health Center, Valley View and Sea Mar provide high quality health care to folks in underserved areas, which is why I’ve always been a champion for community health center funding in Congress,” Herrera Beutler told The Daily News in a statement.

Herrera Beutler, a Clark County Republican, joined more than 100 House colleagues Friday in signing a letter addressed to House Speaker Paul Ryan that expresses “serious concern over the expiration of the Community Health Centers Fund.”

U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., also held a focus group in Pacific County on Thursday at Family Health Center’s Ocean Beach clinic.

“Washington’s community health centers are a critical bedrock of the health safety net, and in many isolated communities they are the only accessible source of basic care,” she told The Daily News in a statement.

Washington has more than 300 community health centers statewide that serve more than 1 million patients, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Cantwell said she will continue to push for community health center funding in the next federal spending bill.

And U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Health and Education Committee, blasted her Republican colleagues for allowing the funding to expire.

“It’s disgraceful that Republican leaders in Congress continue to drag their feet instead of renewing critical funding for community health centers,” she told The Daily News in a statement. “I remain ready to work with Republicans on a long-term funding extension for community health centers that gives patients in Southwest Washington and throughout the state the certainty they deserve about the future of their care.”