Grace Hill's funding is in jeopardy : saint louis healthcare

Grace Hill's funding is in jeopardy : News

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Community health centers such as Grace Hill are a linchpin of President Barack Obama’s administration’s efforts under the Affordable Care Act to eventually contain the nation’s health care costs by providing cost-effective, primary care to the poor.

But key government funding for Grace Hill and other smaller nonprofit community health centers in St. Louis is in jeopardy, while the number of people in need of free and discounted care continues to rise.
“You can’t provide the same amount of care with dollars being pulled out of the system,” said Robert Fruend, executive director of the St. Louis Regional Health Commission. “These places run lean and tight. There’s no fat in these health centers. So when you cut, you cut bone and actual service. ... Everything’s on the table in D.C. right now.”

At least 17 percent of Grace Hill’s annual budget of $33 million will evaporate unless the federal government decides to extend its “Gateway to Better Health” program, a demonstration project intended to help uninsured residents transition to an expanded Medicaid program.

If the Gateway program funding is eliminated, Fruend said, uninsured patients “will have to figure out where to get care. ... Then, the emergency rooms get more crowded. It starts that vicious cycle all over again that we were able to get away from 10 years ago.”

An additional 33 percent of Grace Hill’s budget is contingent on federal grant programs that also have come under intense scrutiny as part of the nation’s fiscal crisis.

These threatened cuts come as St. Louis ConnectCare, a key provider of specialty medical services to the area’s poor since 1998, is preparing to lay off more than half of its staff.
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good start looks like for expanded medical for poor in Missouri.