Your Health Center Needs YOU to TAKE ACTION NOW!

In a matter of months the Health Centers Program will be facing a potential 70% reduction in funding. It is being called the “Health Centers Funding Cliff”. A funding cut this size would almost certainly force many Health Centers to close sites, lay off staff, and reduce the services they provide, leaving millions of current health center patients and communities without access to health care services they need. The only way to stop this cut from happening is for President Obama and the Congress to take action to ‘fix the cliff’.

Given the intense pressure to reduce federal spending, neither the President nor Congress will act to fix the cliff unless tens of thousands of people – staff, board, patients and community allies – who care about health centers weigh in. That means we need YOU to step up and help ‘fix the cliff’ starting right NOW. The first thing you need to do is sign the Health Center Funding Cliff petition. The petition asks President Obama to act immediately to stop Health Center funding cuts to ensure that Health Centers can continue to meet the healthcare needs of millions of Americans. Signing the petition is an easy and important FIRST STEP to making sure we ‘fix the Health Center funding cliff’.

Take Action Now:

• Sign the Health Center Funding Cliff Petition at the NACHC Grassroots Action Center. Our short term goal is to collecting 25,000 signatures in the month of October. You can help us do that. If we can reach this goal we hope to earn a direct response from the White House to our concerns. You can also download a hard copy template of the petition from the Campaign for America’s Health Centers website. This will to allow you to ask anyone at your health center or organization to sign the petition.
• Forward this alert and/or the link to the petition and personally ask your friends, family and colleagues to sign it to support your Health Center and the patients it serves.

You and every Health Center Advocate should be prepared for many calls to action in the months ahead. Once the support and commitment of President Obama to ‘fix the cliff’ has been gained, THEN our attention will need to be turned to Congress and ask Senators and Representatives to provide not only the funding to preserve ongoing Health Center services, but also to expand access to Health Centers’ cost effective model of care to every community, especially those that currently lack basic primary care services.

We will need advocates like you and thousands more to take action each time you receive an alert asking for your help to ‘fix the cliff’. The future of the Health Centers Program will depend on advocates like you making a commitment to Health Center advocacy and taking action when it matters the most.