In fiscal year 2002, which began in October 2001, President Bush launched the President’s Health Centers Initiative with the goal of adding 1,200 new and expanded health center sites over five years “to ultimately double the number of patients treated at community health centers.”15 This was the hallmark of his strategy to address the nation’s uninsured.16 Due to subsequent budget constraints, however, as the federal budget surplus of the 1990s under President Bill Clinton turned to deficits under President Bush, this goal shifted to expanding the number of patients seen from 10 million in 2001 to 16 million in 2006. Still, this patientdriven goal helped grow the funding levels of community health centers from $1.34 billion for FY 2002 to $2.1 billion in FY 2008.

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The historic passage of the new health care law earlier this year now poses a number of implementation-related challenges, including how to deliver care to the additional 32 million Americans who will have health coverage. Because there are still huge pockets of America without accessible health care services, community health centers are well positioned to ramp up and be ready to provide care to these newly covered health care recipients. The Affordable Care Act commits $11 billion to these centers over the next five years to expand services.

Community health centers are long recognized for their ability to effectively utilize federal grants to improve and expand patient access to medical, dental, and mental health services. The steady increase in federal funding has enabled these centers to provide high quality, accessible care to the nation’s most vulnerable populations. That’s why any discussion of how to expand access to health services while trying to slow the rising costs of health care must include maximum utilization of our nation’s existing community health centers and the new ones needed to meet future needs.