One of the most powerful women in the U.S. House of Representatives, Congresswoman Louise McIntosh Slaughter has achieved a significant level of leadership as the Chairwoman of the influential House Committee on Rules, making her the first woman in history to hold this position. A member of the House Democratic Leadership, she serves on the prestigious Democratic Steering & Policy Committee. She is the Democratic Chair of two very prominent congressional caucuses: the Congressional Arts Caucus and the Bipartisan Congressional Pro-Choice Caucus.
Written on Friday, November 13th, 2009 at 12:07pm by Louise Slaughter | 2 Comments

Keep East Side Health Clinics Open

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Today, I express my opposition to the closure of two health clinics on Buffalo’s East Side.  Without these clinics, patients would not receive the same level of care, leading to more severe medical conditions and higher treatment costs.

County Executive Collins has called for the closure of the Jesse Nash Health Care Center and the Dr. Matt Gajewski Human Services Center.  Together, these clinics have provided critically-needed primary care medical services for approximately 10,000 county residents, particularly women, teens, and seniors, who otherwise would not have easy access to pediatric services, dental care, mental health counseling, and women’s health and family planning.

I strongly oppose the proposed closure of the Jesse Nash Health Care Center and the Dr. Matt Gajewski Human Services Center and applaud the County Legislature for holding a hearing on the subject.  City clinics like these are our front line resource to make sure our working poor and indigent do not fall through the cracks.  Closing these one-stop medical service clinics and dumping county residents into a patchwork of fragmented providers is a recipe for inefficient and ultimately more expensive care.

At the national level we are working to establish a more cost-effective health care system. One of the hallmarks of our reform, and one of the major ways we will achieve long term cost savings, is by providing people with better access to primary and preventative care.

The American Medical Association (AMA), the American College of Physicians (ACP) and others have continually stressed that lack of access to primary care physicians leads to worse patient health outcomes and higher costs.

These clinics currently pose no financial burden on County taxpayers.  The cost to operate the clinics is funded through payments from patients’ insurance or reimbursed to the county through state and federal grants. In fact, the clinics have posted budget surpluses and are expected to even cover the clinic employees’ future legacy costs.  Last week I spoke on the House floor and chaired the Rules Committee hearing on the Affordable Health Care for America Act.  My comments are available here.

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2 Comments

  1. Sue says:
    November 14, 2009 at 7:34 am

    Your comments hopefully will be put in Artvoice and the Buffalo News. Collin’s desire to close clinics for 10,000 clients by December 31, 2009 is odd. Certainly those of privilege have longer than that to find a new primary care provider! And where is our health commissioner in all this? He’s not saying a word, you’d think he would have planned this out better. And he got a raise last year! So Chris wants them to go to Sheehan, and unfortunately with them having gone bankrupt a while back (Brian Davis was on their board, too) and not being accredited by the Joint Commmissioner leads one to think that another potential disaster may be on the way! And with state budget cuts hitting more health care programs in Erie just around the corner, why even Kaleida, Catholics, ECMC have said they will cut all prevention clinics, so another mess soon to hit.
    Thank goodness those poor folks are smarter than Chris. They know that they can go find a provider whereever they want, because they do have Medicaid or some form of insurance and nice places like Community Health at ECMC will take them even if they can’t pay! Let’s just hope Chrissie Boy doesn’t send the Sheriff’s department after them for lack of compliance with the Nazi Chris Collins Health Care Plan for Buffalo! Those poor folk should have voted for him. He’ll punish them until they do, like maybe when he runs for governor?