Political Quotes

“about 30 years ago, there emerged on the American scene, as a result of the civil rights movement, demonstrations, marches, protests, action on the part of the United States Congress, initiation of the war on poverty, there emerged a new set of health service delivery mechanisms, something that we today know as community health centers. They started out with the name neighborhood health centers as part of the OEO antipoverty program. Every community that OEO would go into, making an assessment to look at the issue of poverty, there would always emerge the issue of a lack of health care resources, the issue of there not being services available to the people who lived in inner cities and rural communities. As a result of that, these pioneering centers came on the scene. Today I rise to underscore that they are indeed a vital component of our health care system and one that focuses on providing the access to primary and preventive health care services that coverage alone cannot assure. As we all know too well from our experience over the years with Medicaid, the possession of an insurance card will not necessarily guarantee Americans access to health care. Nowhere is this more true than in our inner city and rural, medically underserved communities.”