The National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC) serves as an advocacy organization for its bona fide members which comprise of a number of community health centers across the United States. NACHC actively participates in federal and statewide legislative hearings on issues affecting community health centers and the provision of health care services to underserved and uninsured Americans. NACHC has a vital role in educating the nation’s key players in health care reform such as senators, congressmen, governors, academe, multinational corporations and the public in general regarding the importance of maintaining the existence of Community Health Centers throughout the United States. It brings together all community health activists …show more content…
Moreover, in retrospect, there were 1128 community health centers in the year 2011 that operated in approximately 8500 sites and afforded 80 million visits to approximately 20 million patients, not just for medical care, but also for dental, behavioral health, and other health services. It is worthy to note that greater than 70% of health center clients are under the federal poverty threshold. They consist of 60% working-age adults, 33% children, and 7% senior citizens. One- third of these community health center clients have no insurance and 40% of these clients are insured by Medicaid. The Supreme Court decision on the ACA, which made Medicaid expansion only an option for the states, created a dim future as to the operations and sustainability of community health centers as well as the uninsured. Hence, a state decision against Medicaid expansion would probably weaken health center progression due to the fact that it would have no choice but to avert growth funds to subsidize health care costs for uninsured patients who were supposed to be covered by Medicaid (Shin, Sharac, Alvarez & Rosenbaum, …show more content…
Pursuant to ACA, these tax credits will be obtainable in all states through a state-facilitated or federally-facilitated health insurance marketplace. In contrast, the opposing party, maintained that while it may be possible that Americans at this particular income level are qualified to obtain APTCs, the probability that these low-income Americans would actually buy insurance through the marketplace is highly improbable. Thus, these low-income individuals may continue to be uninsured and persist to be unreimbursed care costs to the community health care system (Medicaid: To Expand or not? Key Economic Arguments Used on Both Sides,