Under HR 8, the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012, the “sequester” – or across-the-board cut for all government programs – was delayed for two months, setting the new deadline for March 1,  less than three weeks away!

The impact of the sequester on health centers in Indianapolis and across the country will be significant.  

If the sequester is not delayed or replaced, the Health Centers Program will face a cut of $115 million, which means that approximately 900,000 patients will lose access to care at a Health Center – both existing and potential new patients, the National Association of Community Health Centers reports.

Virtually all existing health centers could expect to see the impact on their federal health center grants. These potential cuts will curb the growth of the Health Center program by limiting expansion to meet the needs of the newly insured. These cuts will also jeopardize the stability of current health centers by reducing annual funding for the program.

Failure to avert the sequester will have an immediate impact on health centers’ ability to serve the patients in our community.

It is critical that Congress find a way to avert the sequester to ensure that health centers have the continued ability to serve patients in need, improve health outcomes and reduce health care expenditures.

We know that federal spending is going to be cut; the question is how it will be done and what programs will suffer the most.

If you want to have any influence on those decisions, you need to act NOW by calling and emailing your Members of Congress.  They need to hear from YOU and as many other advocates like you as possible to make sure they get the message that they need to protect health centers and the patients they serve!

EMAIL your Members of Congress TODAY to let them know what’s at stake for your health center and the patients it serves if they fail to stop the sequester immediately.

The Senate agreed on a stop-gap funding bill yesterday, that if passed by the House will help keep the government funded and avoid any looming shutdown.  The reason it was able to come to this agreement was because FEMA reported that funding will not be run out until the start of FY2012 (which is October 1^st).

Many programs and organizations similar to HealthNet rely heavily on government funding to serve our populations to the best of our ability.  However, the further we get into budget and appropriations, the more we are seeing funding cuts or flat funding.

When money is tight, EVERYONE has to find a way to make do.  Families are dealing with tighter budgets than ever before, individuals are dealing with less job opportunities to recover any loss in income, and organizations are rebalancing their own budgets to make sure no losses occur.

What we can do to start FY2012 off right is…

control what we can control!

Unless you are a legislator who is reading this, you cannot physically present an amendment to increase funding for Federally Qualified Health Centers, Homeless Organizations, or Organizations who help at-risk youth.

But what you CAN do are these 3 things:

• Advocate
• Raise Awareness
• Donate

Advocacy is the closest we can get to writing an amendment.  We can tell legislators how important our services are to our communities and how much money is saved because of the services organizations like ours provide.

Raising awareness is letting others know how important our services are to the communities we live in.  A lot of people in Indianapolis don’t know about HealthNet or FQHCs, our Homeless Initiative Program, or our Better Indy Babies/Healthy Families programs because they don’t NEED our services.  But, I bet if our services were gone, then they would notice the effect.

Donating is the most direct way to show you give a care about our services.  Recognizing that during these tough times with budget debates and more, our communities need to support organizations that make our communities better.

Let’s start Fiscal Year 2012 off right by controlling what we can control and doing what is best for our community of Indianapolis!