Congressman James Clyburn, who is Majority Whip in the House, and Senator Bernie Sanders announced their new legislation today that will expand and make permanent federal funding of community health centers in our nation. The bill is the Community Health Center and Primary Care Workforce Expansion Act of 2019. You may recall that Bernie helped add the Community Health Center provision into the ACA. This bill builds on that work by increasing the funding for health centers from $5.1 billion to $12.5 billion over next 10 years.
Here’s some video from their joint press conference today.
And some quotes from both Jim Clyburn and Bernie Sanders:
"In the richest country in the world, no American should have to go without basic health care. Community health centers are a critical lifeline for millions of Americans, and we must build upon their success by expanding them to everyone who needs them," Sanders said.
“I have often described the Affordable Care Act as the Civil Rights Act of the 21st Century because it banned many forms of discrimination in the healthcare system. The ACA was a critical piece of legislation that also dramatically expanded the federal funding for community health centers. This legislation builds on the steps taken by the ACA to further expand community health centers by ensuring the millions of Americans who get primary care from community health centers continue to receive care and expands access to more medically-underserved communities,” Clyburn said.
vermontbiz
Congressman Clyburn provides some information on their bill in a couple tweets.
Bernie talked about the need to expand healthcare in this nation.
"It's not just good enough that you have health insurance, but there's millions of Americans who have insurance and can't get to a dentist or doctor when they need to," Sanders told reporters on Monday.
"This week as President Trump and Senate Leader (Mitch) McConnell attempt to pass health care legislation which would throw many millions off of health care, our legislation moves in a very different way," said Sanders.
He added, "What we understand is that not only in America today, do 28 million have no insurance, but there are millions of additional people, including those who have insurance but can't gain access to a doctor or nurse because they live in an area without enough providers."
CBSNews
This may not pass a Republican senate and Trump, although it’s worth trying. It’s a marker on our future when Dems completely take Congress and the Presidency in 2020.
We need to expand health care itself.
Update I: I changed the title after igualdad pointed out to me that they are not expanding access to healthcare, but health care itself. She’s right. I removed access from my title and a couple sentences. Now it’s right. This expands healthcare.