[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 15]
[Senate]
[Page 20916]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      NATIONAL HEALTH CENTER WEEK

  Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. President, today I wish to recognize the week of 
August 9, 2009, as National Health Center Week. National health centers 
provide care to 18 million people a year throughout the United States, 
through services at Community, Migrant, Homeless and Public Housing 
Health Center delivery sites. I wish to take the opportunity in a week 
dedicated to these sites to promote awareness on the expansive role 
they play in the health care of some of our Nation's most underserved 
citizens. It is important to recognize that at a time when health care 
costs have increased considerably across the country, these health 
centers have continued to serve an increasing number of patients 
without compromising the quality of care.
  The Community Health Center Program, which operates in communities 
that are designated as medically underserved, has played a particularly 
important role as a health safety net provider in my State of South 
Dakota. Significant barriers limit access to quality health care for 
thousands of South Dakotans. The successful efforts of our State's 
community health centers have helped reduce many of these barriers by 
providing quality care to our State's low-income citizens. These health 
centers provide onsite dental, pharmaceutical, mental health, and 
substance abuse services that are often hard to come by in rural 
communities. In South Dakota, more than 50,000 patients received care 
in 2007, 40 percent of whom were uninsured and an additional 25 percent 
were covered under Medicaid.
  I strongly support this model of health care delivery and commend the 
hard work of those in South Dakota and across the Nation in providing 
accessible, high-quality health care to those most in need.

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