Since the pandemic arrived on the doorstep of Community Health Centers eight months ago we know a lot more than when we started out. NACHC recently conducted a qualitative analysis of their experiences with testing for COVID-19. The report found that many health centers face emerging and mounting challenges, particularly as the demand for more COVID-19 testing is increasing while local businesses and schools attempt to reopen. Read more.
Press Releases
On November 10, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case of California v. Texas, a case in which the Trump Administration and 18 state attorneys general are asking the Court to strike down the entire landmark Affordable Care Act (ACA) as unconstitutional. Provisions of the landmark law have become so intertwined with our health care over the intervening years that, should the Administration prevail, the entire health care system could be thrown into disarray, with some 21 million people becoming uninsured. Read more.
Community Health Centers are proud to carry out our country’s sacred obligation to provide health care for the thousands who have served and sacrificed to preserve America’s freedom. Today, nearly 400,000 veterans are health center patients, receiving quality primary care and preventive health services.
No veteran should have to stand in line and wait for needed health care, especially in these challenging times. That is why health centers are working to ensure that the growing numbers of veterans now seeking care at our doors can easily access an array of services to protect their health and well-being.
In addition to working with individual health centers and our state Primary Care Associations through our Veterans Interest Group, NACHC continues to communicate with Veterans Administration (VA) counterparts and representatives of third-party administrators responsible for administering the VA’s Community Care Program. NACHC has also strived to increase opportunities for health centers to forge strategic partnerships that foster innovation and new methods of care delivery to veterans— whether it is a VA telehealth pilot program, oral health, or mental health services or housing assistance.
We are proud that health centers not only serve veterans, but hire them. Veterans serve as active members of many health center boards or are working as staff on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Thank you for your continued service to our nation and to our public health.
###
Established in 1971, the National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC) serves as the national voice for America’s Health Centers and as an advocate for health care access for the medically underserved and uninsured.
America’s Health Centers – Our Mission Continues
The outcome of this year’s elections will have an impact on public priorities, policies and budgets going into the future. It is certain that health care will remain a top public concern and the National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC) and its members will continue its longstanding tradition of working with lawmakers across the entire political spectrum to address health care needs.
Our agenda has not changed. We will move our mission forward to ensure the nation continues to invest in and strengthen a community health system that for decades, and today during a global pandemic, has proven itself vital in protecting and providing health care access in thousands of communities for more than 30 million people.
In the remaining days of the 116th Congress, NACHC and its membership will call for action on a needed stimulus bill to counter the impact of the coronavirus and to prepare for massive inoculations once a vaccine becomes available. In addition, we will continue to press for long-term stable funding of the Health Center Program and move aggressively to thwart the attack on the 340B program, which now threatens access to affordable medications for millions of low-income and vulnerable patients.
This has been a tumultuous year marked by the COVID-19 crisis, intense partisan division, economic disruption and hardship, civil unrest and police violence against Black people and peaceful demonstrators. Our health center mission, rooted in the promise of our democracy for fairness and social justice for all, gives us hope for a better and healthier future for everyone. We stand ready to help. Let us heal together.
###
Every single health center cares for people who have been affected by domestic violence. When providers initiate conversations about domestic violence with their patients, they provide crucial support for survivors. In a new blog, Anisa Ali, MA, of Futures Without Violence and Kimberly S.G. Chang, MD, MPH, of Asian Health Services explain. Read more.
Contact: Amy Simmons Farber 202 309 0338
The National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC) has filed suit to take action in response to recent moves by drug manufacturers to dismantle the health center federal 340B drug discount program. The suit seeks to compel the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to implement a long-delayed dispute resolution process that would allow health centers to act against drug companies that are violating the 340B statute and have abruptly stopped shipping discounted drugs to health centers’ contracted pharmacies. Across the country, millions of lives are at stake and health center operations and budgets face possible devastation in the midst of an overwhelming public health pandemic.
The 340B program is critical for health centers’ ability to make medications affordable for patients, and to generate savings that are used to expand access to other services. Previously, most health centers were unable to afford to provide their patients with access to discounted drugs. NACHC estimates that 10 million low-income patients will suffer reduced access to health center services and affordable medicine unless HHS acts now to protect the program. Bipartisan Members of Congress have urged HHS Secretary Alex Azar in a letter to take “immediate action” because drug manufacturers are setting “a dangerous precedent.”
America’s Health Centers care for 30 million patients nationwide across nearly 14,000 communities and are able to provide life-saving medicines and services because of the federal 340B program. Twelve percent of health center patients who have been tested were positive for COVID-19. Health center patients typically suffer from chronic health conditions and rely on low-cost 340B medicines and other health center services to stay healthy and out of hospitals. Yet many of the wealthiest pharmaceutical manufacturers are refusing to ship 340B discounted drugs to contract pharmacies, which are used by thousands of health centers. NACHC has fielded hundreds of complaints from health centers in the past few weeks about high drug prices that low-income patients will be forced to pay. For instance:
- A health center patient may now pay up to $600 for a 30 day supply of insulin that used to cost $17.
- The price of preventive inhaler for asthma may rise from $17-18 to $350 or more per month.
In its filing NACHC noted that:
“The manufacturers’ abrupt about-face, after decades of shipping [health centers’] purchases of 340B-priced drugs to their contract pharmacies—during a global pandemic and a recession—is not only callous, but a clear violation of 340B statutory requirements and the binding pharmaceutical pricing agreements manufacturers have with HHS.”
NACHC’s suit presses HHS to promulgate administrative dispute resolution (“ADR”) regulations and implement a process to adjudicate and remedy the 340B violations. While HHS has signaled some disapproval of recent manufacturers’ practices, no action has been taken despite concerns raised by hundreds of bipartisan Members of Congress.
###
Established in 1971, the National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC) serves as the national voice for America’s Health Centers and as an advocate for health care access for the medically underserved and uninsured.