Way #10: Community Health Centers, Primary Care Provider Support, and Small Business Tax Credits
As you probably know, the health care reform law is long and complicated. The sheer number and scope of reforms cannot be simplified into ten blog posts. So we prioritized those already making a difference for families in Wisconsin (while omitting very significant reforms that have not taken effect yet). You can see all the posts in this series here.
This last post cheats a little bit by serving as a catch-all for several different parts of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that have begun improving health care access for Wisconsin families:
1. Increased Support for Community Health Centers: Community health centers deliver comprehensive, high-quality preventive and primary care to patients in underserved areas regardless of ability to pay. The ACA provides increased support to community health centers, and Wisconsin community health centers have already received $15.4 million. As Wisconsin Primary Health Care Association executive director Stephanie Harrison said, “With this funding, our Health Centers will be able to serve more patients in underserved areas across Wisconsin and put more people to work in the process.”
2. Support to Build the Health Care Workforce: The law recognizes that when more people have health insurance, there needs to be access to care and that means providers to see people – so it invests in the primary care workforce. The National Health Service Corps (http://nhsc.hrsa.gov/) provides scholarships and loan repayment to primary care providers serving in communities with limited access to health care. This great video clip includes Wisconsin’s own, Dr. Lana Doxtater, a member of the National Health Service Corps working at Access Community Health Center in Madison: Wisconsin also received $14.5 million for health professions workforce demonstration projects to help low-income people enter the health care profession in shortage areas.
3. Small Business Tax Credits: Over 86,100 small businesses in Wisconsin were eligible to receive tax credits through the ACA for providing health insurance to their employees in 2010, which amounts to nearly 87 percent of all small businesses in Wisconsin. These tax credits are providing needed relief to small businesses, and will be strengthened with the added assistance of a small business health insurance exchange to pool risk and provide quality, affordable health plan options to small business owners in 2014.
Though this series of blog posts prioritizes ten reforms that we think are particularly important, we know that there are many other ACA provisions making a difference for Wisconsinites. Tell us how they’re making a difference for you and your family!
Sara Eskrich
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As we wait anxiously for the Supreme Court to issue their decision on the Affordable Care Act (ACA), we know that children and families in Wisconsin are already benefiting from the law. It is important to recognize these ways in which the ACA is already making an impact and what could be lost if the Court strikes down the whole law. This is one in a series of blog posts highlighting what we think are the top ten ways children and families in Wisconsin are already benefiting from the health care reform law.
