There's a nice editorial piece in the current edition of Health Affairs, (2010, V29 N3) by founding editor John Iglehart that reflects on the context and history of our network of community health centers. I was surprised to learn that there are CHC's in 400 out of 435 congressional districts in this country. The main points in Iglehart's editorial are that a) CHC's fulfill a vital role in our national health care system; 2) there role is not going to go away with health care reform and is likely to actually increase; 3) they are uniquely positioned to adapt to the future structure of health care reform; 4) they cultivate unusual bipartisan support (can someone figure out why this is the case so we can bottle it?)
Iglehart does not mention the role that CHC's play in delivering mental health services or the often paralyzing effect that comes from funding CHC's and community mental health centers through distinct federal programs. While this message may have been somewhat off point, I'd welcome the same kind of piece on our CMHC system. I suspect that it would parallel the CHC store on 1, 2, and 3 - but fall tragically short on 4.
I'd love to hear thoughts and comments if you have any?
Posted
Mar 02 2010, 11:56 AM
by
Steven Vannoy