OFFICIALS LEGISLATION INTEREST GROUPS PUBLIC STATEMENTS COMMITTEES VETOES

Letter to Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House, and Kevin McCarthy, House Minority Leader , Mitch McConnell, Senate Majority Leader, and Chuck Schumer, Senate Minority Leader - Warren, Pressley, Sanders, & Over 135 Colleagues Seek Additional Funding for Community Health Centers in Upcoming COVID-19 Stimulus Packages

Letter

By: Ruben Gallego, Jackie Speier, Judy Chu, Gil Cisneros, Lou Correa, Jared Huffman, Jim Costa, Tony Cárdenas, Lucille Roybal-Allard, Alan Lowenthal, Jahana Hayes, Kathy Castor, Sanford Bishop, Jr., Robin Kelly, Cheri Bustos, Lori Trahan, Stephen Lynch, Jamie Raskin, Rashida Tlaib, Emanuel Cleaver II, Albio Sires, Elizabeth Warren, Jerry McNerney, Ro Khanna, Ted Lieu, Mark Takano, Juan Vargas, Eleanor Norton, Alcee Hastings, Sr., Hank Johnson, Jr., Chuy Garcia, André Carson, Joe Kennedy III, Bill Keating, Chellie Pingree, Brenda Lawrence, Bennie Thompson, Don Payne, Jr., Gregory Meeks, Jerry Nadler, Eliot Engel, Marcy Kaptur, Earl Blumenauer, Susan Wild, Vicente Gonzalez, Eddie Johnson, Mark Pocan, Dick Durbin, Catherine Cortez Masto, Terri Sewell, Josh Harder, T.J. Cox, Karen Bass, Maxine Waters, Diana DeGette, Lisa Blunt Rochester, Lois Frankel, Tulsi Gabbard, Danny Davis, John Yarmuth, Katherine Clark, John Sarbanes, Dan Kildee, Betty McCollum, G. K. Butterfield, Jr., Bonnie Watson Coleman, Grace Meng, Carolyn Maloney, Sean Maloney, Marcia Fudge, Peter DeFazio, David Cicilline, Sheila Jackson Lee, Filemon Vela, Jr., Gwen Moore, Amy Klobuchar, Jacky Rosen, Raul Grijalva, Barbara Lee, Julia Brownley, Linda Sánchez, Katie Porter, Jason Crow, Darren Soto, Frederica Wilson, Dave Loebsack, Jan Schakowsky, Cedric Richmond, Ed Markey, Anthony Brown, Andy Levin, Ilhan Omar, David Price, Deb Haaland, Nydia Velázquez, Adriano Espaillat, Paul Tonko, Tim Ryan, Dwight Evans, Jim Langevin, Joaquin Castro, Peter Welch, Kamala Harris, Tina Smith, Sheldon Whitehouse, John Larson, Val Demings, Donna Shalala, Bobby Rush, Bill Foster, Jim McGovern, Ayanna Pressley, David Trone, Debbie Dingell, Lacy Clay, Jr., Alma Adams, Dina Titus, Hakeem Jeffries, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Brian Higgins, Kendra Horn, Madeleine Dean, Steve Cohen, Henry Cuellar, Pramila Jayapal, Richard Blumenthal, Cory Booker, Bernie Sanders, Thomas Suozzi, Yvette Clarke, José Serrano, Joyce Beatty, Suzanne Bonamici, Mary Scanlon, Al Green, Sylvia Garcia, Adam Smith, Mazie Hirono, Tom Udall
Date: May 7, 2020
Location: Washington, DC
Issues: Health and Health Care Government Budget and Spending

Dear Speaker Pelosi, Minority Leader McCarthy, Majority Leader McConnell, and Minority
Leader Schumer:

We write to express our utmost gratitude for Congress' continued support for our nation's
community health centers (CHCs). We appreciate your response to our bicameral calls1
to secure robust and long-term funding for CHCs as part of the Coronavirus Preparedness and Response
Supplemental Appropriations Act and the CARES Act. However, as this unprecedented public
health pandemic continues to wreak havoc on our nation, substantially more resources are
desperately needed to address the needs of our most vulnerable communities. As negotiations
continue for any upcoming stimulus package, we urge you to take immediate action and provide
$77.3 billion for community health centers as quickly as possible, including at least $7.6 billion
in emergency supplemental funding.

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to devastate communities across America, most
specifically people of color and low-income communities, it is imperative to our broader public
health and safety goals that CHCs receive the funding they need to effectively meet the
challenges before them.

Throughout this pandemic, CHCs have served as one of our nation's most critical frontline
providers. Serving almost 30 million rural and urban low-income people across America, CHCs
provide testing and medical care within the nation's most vulnerable and hardest hit
communities. Recent race and ethnicity data published by the Centers of Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC) and state and local public health departments have shown COVID-19
infections, hospitalizations, and deaths have a disproportionate effect on Black and Latinx communities.
In Massachusetts alone, home to more than 52 federally qualified health centers,
the East Boston Neighborhood Community Health Center has provided culturally-responsive and
affordable care for more than 300 COVID-19 patients, many of whom are residents in Chelsea,
MA ─ a majority Latinx community ─ in what is now the largest hot spot in the state.3 The trend
of disproportionate infection rates in Black and brown communities is happening in cities and
states across the country, from Chicago to Baton Rouge to Queens.

Further, as the economic ramifications of this pandemic continue to grow, CHCs have become
increasingly relied upon. Today, as many as 26 million people have lost their jobs and with it
employer-sponsored health coverage, leaving millions of people without adequate access to
health care.4 By the Department of Health and Human Services' (HHS) own admission, CHCs
are being asked to step up and provide medical care for this vulnerable population. CDC Director
Redfield, for example, recently described federally qualified health centers as "an important
component of the national response to the COVID-19 virus" and highlighted the centers' role in
"assess[ing] whether a patient needs further [COVID-19] testing" and providing "primary health
care services…at a reduced cost or free of charge." It is unfair and unsustainable for CHCs to meet an increased demand all while operating with limited funding and resources. Nothing is
more fundamental to our recovery than the strengthening of America's public health safety net.

Robust emergency funding, in addition to the long-term five-year reauthorization of the
Community Health Center Fund, will not only help our health centers meet the immediate needs
of all of their patients during this pandemic but set a strong foundation for the long-term
recovery that lies ahead. And, when the pandemic subsides and every single American needs
COVID-19 testing, and later, vaccinations, our health centers can and will be ready. Like they
have for decades, CHCs will ensure every community, including uninsured individuals,
immigrants, low-income people, and people with disabilities, have access to the health care they
need ─ when they need it.

We look forward to working with you to support our CHCs and provide $77.3 billion, including
at least $7.6 billion in emergency funding, to help meet the immediate needs of today, but ensure
their financial stability well after this pandemic is over.

Sincerely,


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