“President Bush leaves office with a health care legacy in bricks and mortar: he has doubled federal financing for community health centers, enabling the creation or expansion of 1,297 clinics in medically underserved areas.”
Says who? The New York Times. (Ergo, it must be true.) The article, “Expansion of Clinics Shapes a Bush Legacy.” All the news that’s fit to print? Well almost. It’s pretty amazing that the Gray Lady opted to leave out any mention of Part D in the President's legacy. But maybe that article’s on the way.
But to give credit where credit is do, it’s a good article that raises some important questions -- one of the most important raised by House majority whip Representative James E. Clyburn (D, SC). Mr. Clyburn makes the very important point that reducing the number of uninsured will be meaningless if the newly insured cannot find medical homes.
This is a key policy point for many reasons, not the least of which is the successful management of chronic disease. Minus a warm and welcoming (and e-tized) medical home, we cannot seriously advance prevention initiatives (i.e., early detection) or improve our abysmal compliance/adherence rates. Minus a medical home we remain an acute care culture. Minus a medical home, even community health centers are but Potemkin villages.
Last year over 80,000 Americans had a foot amputated because of undiagnosed and untreated diabetes. Hundreds of thousands of heart attacks and strokes, caused by undiagnosed or untreated high blood pressure and high cholesterol, cost the American health care system billions of dollars a year while the cost in terms of human suffering cannot even begin to be measured.
Lack of early detection? Sure. Lack of compliance/adherence? Definitely. Lack of a medical home? Shameful.
When it comes to healthcare reform, we cannot leave patients home alone.
Says who? The New York Times. (Ergo, it must be true.) The article, “Expansion of Clinics Shapes a Bush Legacy.” All the news that’s fit to print? Well almost. It’s pretty amazing that the Gray Lady opted to leave out any mention of Part D in the President's legacy. But maybe that article’s on the way.
But to give credit where credit is do, it’s a good article that raises some important questions -- one of the most important raised by House majority whip Representative James E. Clyburn (D, SC). Mr. Clyburn makes the very important point that reducing the number of uninsured will be meaningless if the newly insured cannot find medical homes.
This is a key policy point for many reasons, not the least of which is the successful management of chronic disease. Minus a warm and welcoming (and e-tized) medical home, we cannot seriously advance prevention initiatives (i.e., early detection) or improve our abysmal compliance/adherence rates. Minus a medical home we remain an acute care culture. Minus a medical home, even community health centers are but Potemkin villages.
Last year over 80,000 Americans had a foot amputated because of undiagnosed and untreated diabetes. Hundreds of thousands of heart attacks and strokes, caused by undiagnosed or untreated high blood pressure and high cholesterol, cost the American health care system billions of dollars a year while the cost in terms of human suffering cannot even begin to be measured.
Lack of early detection? Sure. Lack of compliance/adherence? Definitely. Lack of a medical home? Shameful.
When it comes to healthcare reform, we cannot leave patients home alone.
