National Health Care Reform and Community and Migrant Health Centers

Community and migrant health centers (CHCs) have been shown to increase access to health care, improve health status, and reduce health care costs in communities that they serve. Thus CHCs can play an important role in providing for underserved communities under any program of national health care reform whose aim is universal, affordable access. To benefit the poor, such a plan should be federally administered and progressively financed, with comprehensible enrollment procedures, easy paperwork, and clearly delineated limits and benefits.