This Follow Friday, I am highlighting friends from the National Association of Community Health Centers (@nachc). They have a new website up called Health Center Voice. It is designed for people interested in advocating for community health centers.

Now is a time that this site is especially important. The proposed cuts from the House Appropriation bill to the Continuing Resolution bill, includes $1.3 billion dollars in cuts to community health centers. From a NACHC press release:

If this cut were to be approved, it will mean that America’s Health Centers will lose the capacity to serve 11 million patients over the next year, with well over 3.3 million current patients losing their care within the next few months. That is equivalent to terminating all health care to the entire population of Chicago, or to everyone living in the states of Wyoming, Vermont, North and South Dakota, and Alaska combined.

That is what I call being penny wise and pound foolish. Will those 11 million people stop needing health care? No, they will just get it in other ways, like going to the emergency room which is much more expensive.

Related to this is a plan to eliminate AmeriCorps. (See this petition).

Each year, AmeriCorps offers 75,000 opportunities for adults of all ages and backgrounds to serve through a network of partnerships with local and national nonprofit groups

One important AmeriCorps program is the Community HealthCorps.

Founded in 1995 by the National Association of Community Health Centers, Community HealthCorps is the largest health-focused, national AmeriCorps program that promotes health care for America’s underserved, while developing tomorrow’s health care workforce.

The plans to eliminate AmeriCorps is yet another penny wise and pound foolish effort.

So, I salute my friends on Health Center Voice that use twitter and encourage you to follow them.