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National Health Center Week

By Adriana Zyskowski

Last month, my friend got really sick. While she plans on enrolling in health care this fall, she’s currently uninsured, so she went to a community health center. Although a little skeptical at first, she soon realized that they were affordable, of good quality, and the staff was attentive and caring. Not to mention that they shared valuable resources with her, such as information about Medi-Cal and preventative care.

My friend isn’t the only young adult going to a health center.  In California, according to 2011-2012 data from the California Health Interview Survey, almost 2.3 million young Californians aged 18-34 say that a community health center is their primary source of health care. That’s a lot of young adults! So with so many people in our generation utilizing community health centers and with all the good they do in our communities, it makes sense to have an entire week commemorating the great work of community health centers. They serve the primary health care needs of more than 22 million patients in over 9,000 locations across the United States.

Why do people choose health centers? According to the National Association of Community Health Centers, people go to them because they:

  • Are more affordable for uninsured young adults
  • Improve patient health
  • Are trustworthy
  • Often offer sliding-scale fee schedules based on an individual’s income
  • Create good local jobs in the communities they serve
  • Typically have staff that speak in languages other than English
  • Provide useful information and resources to visitors

Although some may think that with the implementation of the ACA, health centers may no longer be needed, they are still going to play an important role in providing services to uninsured young adults. Very low-income individuals (making less than 100% of the federal poverty level) who live in states that don’t expand Medicaid and undocumented individuals will still be uninsured after 2014. This means that health centers may be the only places these young adults can go to get affordable care.

Because we support access to health care for all young adults, we consider community health centers an asset to our communities. To help celebrate National Health Center Week, Young Invincibles’ California office is doing some serious outreach this week!

  • Join us on Thursday, August 15 from 1pm-4pm at a health and resource fair sponsored by The Children’s Clinic.
  • You can also catch our CA Director, Tamika Butler, on a Town Hall panel at Cal State Long Beach’s Salud es Cultura Center on August 15 at 4pm.
  • Get your body in motion on a walk for health in South LA on Friday, August 16 at 9am.

If you can’t make these events in person, you can always follow us on Twitter @YI_Care to see what we’re up to, and let us know why health centers are important to you!