Moreover, health center services save money and lives by treating diseases before they become chronic conditions, require hospital care or require a trip to the emergency room.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Community health centers do a great deal with limited resources. They provide critical medical care services to many who would otherwise have no other place to go or would end up in an emergency room.
My contention is that if we expand the patient-centered health care approach, we'll have less people that have to go the medical clinic that provides free service or go to the emergency room - they can have their own health care plan.
Look, if you have somebody who doesn't have health insurance, who doesn't have a doctor or dentist, and in order to deal with their cold or flu or dental problem, they go to an emergency room - in general, that visit will cost ten times more than walking into a community health center.
Providing health care is like building a house. The task requires experts, expensive equipment and materials, and a huge amount of coordination.
Each and every day health centers provide high-quality primary and preventive care to our constituents.
If your access to health care involves your leaving work and driving somewhere and parking and waiting for a long time, that's not going to promote healthiness.
I am interested in getting people to use the healthcare system at the right time, getting them to see the doctor early enough, before a small health problem turns serious.
The health care system is really designed to reward you for being unhealthy. If you are a healthy person and work hard to be healthy, there are no benefits.
Where patient needs are complex, we should provide greater support in the community so that patients can cut down on trips to the tertiary hospital.
Health care is a need; it's not a commodity, and it should be distributed according to need. If you're very sick, you should have a lot of it. If you're not sick, you shouldn't have a lot of it.