[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 19 (Monday, January 29, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S554-S555]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        COMMUNITY HEALTH CENTERS

  Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, tonight I rise to speak about two matters. 
The first is the issue of community health centers, which, of course, 
is a major issue for States across the country.

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  Millions of Americans get their healthcare through community health 
centers. I will mention it more than once--800,000 of them are in the 
State of Pennsylvania. As we come closer to working out bipartisan 
agreements on a whole range of issues that are ahead of us literally in 
the next 2 to 3 weeks, I hope there will be a strong consensus to 
provide a funding plan and funding certainty to community health 
centers across the country.
  These community health centers provide access to healthcare through 
education, rehabilitation, preventive services, and direct care. These 
centers focus on meeting the very basic healthcare needs in a 
community. They provide critical services, especially for people in 
both urban areas and rural areas, where there are often limited options 
for primary care and prevention clinics.
  Despite the critical importance of these health centers, Congress 
failed to act to extend the majority of funding for community health 
centers before it ran out on September 30, 2017. After funds expired, 
the health centers were facing a funding reduction of between 60 
percent and 70 percent of their funding.
  Last December, Congress passed a continuing resolution that included 
$550 million in funding for community health centers. That is nowhere 
near what they need to get through even 1 year. While this funding 
patch will provide some short-term relief, the funds do not provide the 
long-term funding stability for health centers that they need and that 
the patients who depend upon them should have a right to expect.
  It is time for Congress to end the delays and get a long-term funding 
plan in place for these community health centers by the next deadline 
for the continuing resolution for funding, which is, of course, 
February 8. Because there is a deadline, it does give us the chance to 
work toward that date, to get funding in place by the 8th.
  Across the United States, health centers serve more than 25 million 
patients per year. That is about 1 in 13 Americans overall. Consider 
this: I live in a State where we have 67 counties, but 48 of the 67 are 
so-called rural counties. That is the way they are categorized. There 
are a lot of healthcare needs in those rural communities and rural 
counties. Health centers provide care to one in four rural Americans. 
If that ratio were applied to Pennsylvania--we have at least 3 million 
people who live in rural communities. You can see the numbers. Hundreds 
of thousands of Pennsylvanians in rural areas depend upon healthcare 
from these community health centers.
  In terms of the centers themselves, in 2016, Pennsylvania had 264, 
and that meant there were thousands of people working in those health 
centers. There are close to 5,000--above 4,900 Pennsylvanians who work 
in these centers. These health centers provide quality care and vital 
services, as I said before, to a total of 800,000 Pennsylvanians--
rural, urban, and otherwise.
  To give you a sense of some of the testimony I received from people 
in our State, one story came from Emily, who works at the Family 
Practice and Counseling Network, a location I just visited today in 
Philadelphia. She wrote this letter to me a number of weeks ago. I 
won't read the whole excerpt, but this is what she said in pertinent 
part about the people who are served by these community health centers:

       They have lives filled with trauma and in turn suffer from 
     social, physical, and behavioral issues that will go 
     untreated if funding for [community health centers] goes away 
     . . . our services are so needed.

  The words I want people to remember are ``lives filled with trauma.'' 
That is, unfortunately, a good description of the lives led by a lot of 
Americans when healthcare--in this case, a community health care 
center--is not there for them or when healthcare itself is threatened. 
``Lives filled with trauma.''
  Another person who works at the same place and who has been the 
leader of this particular institution, the Family Practice and 
Counseling Network in Philadelphia, is the executive director, Donna 
Torrisi. I met her just today. She sent me a letter prior to today 
about her concerns. She is concerned about the funding cliff resulting 
in a barrier to care for people who need mental health services that 
are critically important. Donna said in pertinent part:

       The impact on our community will be devastating. Our health 
     center provides behavioral health services that are already 
     limited in Philadelphia. Without funding, we'll need to close 
     a site and cut jobs, causing patients to go without the care 
     they desperately need.

  For purposes of this debate, I would consider that expert testimony 
on community health centers because I know that in Donna's case, she 
has worked in this field something on the order of 25 years. We 
appreciate her weighing in on this.
  I know there is concern on both sides of the aisle on this issue. I 
hope that concern results in a bipartisan agreement to fund community 
health centers to at least--and I would like to do a lot more, but at 
least give some funding certainty for the next year, meaning from now 
until the end of the fiscal year. I hope we can get an agreement that 
would give funding certainty for 2 years or more. That would be ideal.

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