What do Federally Qualified Health Centers do? by Hal James   hal@cctaxpayers.com

     I heard a man brag on Fox News recently that, although he has not worked since 1987, he has first class health care.  How can that be?
     He continued by saying he gets health services from a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC), so I wondered what FQHCs do.  There are 2 of them in Craven County, so I checked out what they say about themselves, and found they provide “comprehensive primary and preventive care” to residents of all ages “regardless of their ability to pay.”  Services listed include “annual wellness exams, sick visits, immunizations, lab services, and chronic disease management.”
     They say they’ll coordinate appointments with other health care providers, including specialists, and “provide you with tools and education that can help manage your care at home.”  Judging by the billboard pictured above, they must be formidable competition for private medical practices.  They also compete with the private sector when it comes to employing a work force.  These tax dollar supported health agencies are currently advertising for clinical charge nurses, RNs for postop recovery, a unit manager for an ER, and for behavioral health specialists.
     I wondered how wide-spread this is and found a list of “NC Healthcare Safety Net Providers” published by the NC Institute of Medicine.  There are 142 pages, and each page contains about 25 such providers.  That makes the grand total approximately 3,550 in NC alone.
    If someone works hard all his or her life, shouldn’t he or she get to keep the fruits of that lifetime of labor instead of being forced to pay for “excellent health care” for a nere-do-well?
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