Date: 2008-06-04
Speaker: TIM MURPHY (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Pennsylvania

Madam Speaker. I thank Ranking Member DEAL and I thank Mr. GREEN for this very. very important bill. this Health Centers Renewal Act to provide some very. very important coverage for some of our most needy citizens. You know. when people oftentimes will comm6nt upon how many people in America dont have health care. who recognize that actually many of them are covered by programs such as Medicaid. they may or may not know it. or SCHIP or some choose not to have health insurance. But there are also those millions Qf Americans .who simply are not lowincome enough for Medicaid. They dont have children. so theyre not covered by SCHIP. And theyre not old enough for Medicare. Where do they go? Well. community health centers provide the very. health care that they need. give them health care home. give them peace of mind. It is a place where. for a low fee. they can have ongoing health care. know that they have a doctor who knows them. and dentist and psychologist and other ones who provide the vital care for them. and it keeps costs down. Keeps costs down tremendously. I believe some 30 percent of people who go to community health centers do not have health care insurance. and of those who do attend. it maintains even lower costs for Medicaid patients. So it is savings at all levels. But unfortunately. there are huge vacancies with community health centers. Those vacancies have to do with normal family physicians or psychiatrists or OB/GYNs. and that has led to backups. That has led to delays in appointments. And the question is. is there a way we can resolve that? Well. heres something we discovered that was odd. and this bill corrects that. Strangely enough. if physicians want to volunteer at a free clinic. they can do so. and theyre covered by the Federal Tort Claims Act. On the other hand. if they are paid medical staff at a free clinic. theyre not covered under the Federal Tort Claims Act. Reverse that for a community health center. If theyre paid staff at a community health center. theyre covered under the Federal Tort Claims Act. but if they want to volunteer. they are not. I introduced a bill. H.R. 1626. the Family Healthcare Accessibility Act. a couple of years ago to correct that. and I am pleased that Mr. GREEN has put this into this bill. That basically provides that physicians and other health professionals. nurse practitioners who want to volunteer are covered. What does this mean? That means lower costs for clinics. and that means that physicians. for example. who may want to give some of their time each week or each month. a clinic will be there with welcome arms. It has not been something thats been allowed before. but it does provide lower health .are costs. It is a way for physicians and other primary practitioners to be able to give back to the community. It is a way to lower health care costs. In this Nation. where there are 760 primary care physician openings. 290 nurse practitioners openings and 310 dentist openings just a couple of years agoand those numbers may have climbedthis provides a way that we can fulfill those needs at basically no cost. I thank the chairman. I thank Ranking Member DEAL and everybody else who has been part of this bill in making this a working bill to. help bring health care costs down.- help bring health care to Americas needy citizens and help bring a health care home for so many Americans.