WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING: WV Rural Health Centers Funding Held Up, Some Facing Closure

(01/28/2018)

By Bob Weaver Hundreds of US hospitals and Primary Care Centers are at risk of being closed, currently because Washington will not fund. Calhoun and Roane are primary centers. Several hundred employees have been eliminated in West Virginia. Minnie Hamilton Health System has eliminated about six longtime positions. A West Virginia Hospital Association official said the state's hospitals stand to lose up to $15 million toward treating low-income patients if federal cuts to a Medicaid program remain in place. Congress let that grant funding — $3.6 billion in federal fiscal year 2017 — expire Oct. 1 at the same time as the Children's Health Insurance Program, which has now been funded. There are 31 federally qualified community health centers in West Virginia, mostly in rural areas. About one in four West Virginians use the centers, according to the West Virginia Primary Care Association, compared to about 8 percent of people nationwide. The funding includes many of the school-based health centers that have opened in West Virginia in recent years, and centers that employ the only primary care providers for miles. Further, following the effort to repeal Obamacare, it appears to be taken down with piecemeal efforts by congress. See WV map of those affected in story: at Leaders of WV's federally qualified health centers wait for funding By Erin Beck Staff writer for the Gazette-Mail

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