On a typical day, Dr. Kumar Biswas treats more than 20 patients for everything ranging from ear infections to heart disease. As an internist for Bucksport Regional Health Center in Bucksport, Dr. Biswas starts his day by arriving a full hour before the facility opens to accommodate patients needing immediate care or those who are unable to come in during the regularly scheduled hours. Although the Center carves out a lunch break for its providers, Dr. Biswas rarely takes one. Instead, he uses this time to follow-up with patients to learn how their new medication is working for them or to place a call to remind one of his diabetic patients to return for a blood sugar test. Throughout the day, he maintains a running list of patients who need to be checked up on, and although the health center closes at 5:00 p.m., Dr. Biswas consults his list and normally stays past 6:00 p.m. to place these calls.
He treats babies, single parents, working families, and elderly patients with chronic conditions. “I see people ages 1 to 100,” states Dr. Biswas. “High cholesterol, diabetes, coughs, colds…rarely do I send my patients to a hospital. I don’t want them to wait in an emergency room for eight hours.”
While he may be uniquely dedicated to serving his patients’ every need, Dr. Biswas’ routine is fairly standard for a community health center provider. Community health centers are non-profit, community-run, health care facilities that offer a wide range of primary care services to low-income and medically underserved communities, regardless of a patients’ ability to pay. They provide access to a regular source of health care that would otherwise be unattainable for many people. Providers at these facilities care for people of all ages, all incomes, and all health conditions. They offer guidance to new mothers, treat chronic illnesses, furnish mental and behavioral health services, and provide critical disease management services.
Our community health centers recently celebrated National Health Center Week to educate people on the services that they provide. There are 18 community health centers in our state, located as far north as Fort Kent and as far south as Sanford. From Porter to Eastport these centers provide care to people in Maine’s most rural areas, where the nearest physician may be an hour away. They also assist those who lack the health insurance or funds needed to pay for private care right around the corner from their home. Without these centers, nearly 130,000 Maine residents would not have access to a regular source of primary health care.
The U.S. health care system is experiencing serious problems that are driving more and more Americans into the ranks of the uninsured. As many as 46 million Americans are uninsured, and millions more are underinsured. Studies have shown that these individuals are less likely to seek care when they need it and more likely to forgo basic services such as periodic check-ups and preventive services. Maine is in the midst of a growing health insurance crisis, with insurance premiums rising at alarming rates. Our community health centers help fill the gap by offering cost-effective, high-quality health care to the nation’s poor and medically underserved – including those who are uninsured.
For this reason, I have signed on as an original cosponsor to legislation to reauthorize the federal Health Centers Program, which is set to expire in September of this year. The program was established with the goal of extending a safety net to Americans in underserved and low-income areas and to those who lack health insurance. Since the program’s inception, more than 1,000 community health centers have been established nation-wide, assisting more than 15 million people in over 3,600 communities with their health care needs.
In 2001, President Bush called for the expansion of the Health Centers Program and set a goal of establishing 1,200 new facilities to serve an additional 6 million people. The legislation that I am championing would bring us closer to achieving this goal by ensuring continued access to community health centers and authorizing a funding level of $1.96 billion for Fiscal Year 2007.
One of my top priorities in the Senate has been to expand access to affordable health care. I am pleased that efforts on the federal level, combined with the hard work of Maine’s community health centers, are paying off. Last year, Maine’s community health centers ranked first in the country for the total number of patients they served per capita.
Our community health centers have proven that they can not only play a vital role in providing accessible primary care, but also can provide aggressive outreach, patient education, transportation, translation, and other support services. One of the most encouraging results of the work done by health centers is that the communities they serve have seen a reduction in infant mortality rates in the past four years.
There is no question that these centers save lives. They need and deserve increased federal support if we are to realize the goal of ensuring access to health care for all of those in need. I am pleased that Congress and the President have stepped up efforts to expand the network of community health centers, and I remain committed to working with our centers in Maine to ensure that dedicated providers, like Dr. Biswas, have the resources that they need to continue their work.
###