Health plaudits
Calling it “a day to celebrate,” Ann Nolon, president and CEO of Hudson River Health Care, welcomed U.S. Rep.John Hall, D-Dover Plains, to its Peekskill facility April 9 to thank him for voting “yes”™ on the new health care legislation.
HRHC serves 65,000 patients through a network of 16 health centers in nine counties. Nolon said the new Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act signed into law by President Barack Obama on March 23, 2010 is “a new chapter” for community health care centers.
“We have doubled the number of people served over the past decade, from 10 million to 20 million,” said Nolon. “We are now challenged with doubling that number within the next five years and gearing up to serve nearly 40 million people. We (Hudson River Health Care) plan to be at the head of the game.”
Nolon laid out the new health care act”™s impact on community health care providers: $11 billion to be set up in the form of a trust fund and distributed over the next five years to help increase the 20 million people now served to 40 million. An additional $1.5 billion will be set aside for capital improvement to facilities and upgrades to infrastructure.
“In fiscal year 2011, which begins in October 2010, $1.1 billion will be added to the existing community health center appropriation of $2.19 billion; $3.2 billion is an amazing amount of money for health care providers to go forward to improve services and increase access to health care across the country,” said Nolon.
An additional $1.5 billion over the $11 billion will be allocated to the National Health Corps Physicians”™ scholarship fund, with the objective to attract 15,000-17,000 new clinicians to work in health care centers in medically underserved areas.
“The new law also funds medical residency training programs in collaboration with hospitals and other programs in community health care centers,” said Nolon. As a result, “We will be able to broaden community-based primary care training.”
Medicare and Medicaid will see an additional 2 million existing community health care patients participating in those programs, and more Americans will become eligible when changes to the enrollment qualifications become effective. (While the criteria for qualification will be easier and the government will cover 100 percent of the reimbursement cost, there will be no additional funding for administering the program.)
Hall told the audience the health care legislation is “many-faceted, and it does a lot ”“ specifically, it prevents cancellations of insurance policies for those who are sick. Too many Americans who come down with a debilitating, expensive illness are dropped by their carriers. That will no longer happen.”
Pre-existing conditions would also become moot under the new law, preventing insurers from refusing to cover those who apply and already have an existing health issue, said Hall. It will provide preventative care services for seniors ”“ mammography, colonoscopy, blood glucose testing and other well-care services that will no longer be subject to a co-pay or deductible.
Hall said the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is “not perfect ”“ no bill is. Every piece of major legislation in this country, from the Voting Rights Act to Medicare, has been amended over time. There will be problems and unforeseen consequences, and Congress will go back and make changes. I”™m just pleased that we have now joined the other 19 countries of the G-20 that have a basic safety net to provide to as close to universal coverage as they could provide.”
Hall estimated 1 in 75 people in the mid-Hudson region will be eligible for coverage under the new legislation, or approximately 12,000 people. Undocumented aliens are not eligible to participate.