Free health clinic reps argue for full funding

Free health clinics in West Virginia will be in trouble if a proposal to cut their budgets from the state Department of Health and Human Resources by more than half stands, according to those who operate the facilities for low-income adults.

“The 52.7 percent cut that the budget is proposed to give to free clinics will be fatal to some of our clinics in the state,” said Jim Harris, president of the West Virginia Association of Free Clinics, who works at Health Access in Clarksburg.

Currently, the DHHR budget for the ten free clinics in West Virginia is $4 million. In the proposal Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin submitted to lawmakers for the next fiscal year, which begins in July, the free clinic budget has been reduced to a $2 million line item.

According to the state DHHR, roughly one in four West Virginians, 498,943 residents, now get their healthcare coverage through Medicaid. A total of 153,544 residents were added when Medicaid was expanded under the Affordable Care Act.

Harris said many of those new Medicaid enrollees, though, are struggling to find healthcare providers which makes the care provided through the free clinics even more important.

“These patients are applying to become patients and they’re being told, ‘You can come back in six months. You can come back in eight months. When our census gets low enough, we’ll take another Medicaid case,'” he said. “We’re the safety net, so we’re the ones who see all the Medicaid cases.”

In 2013, according to Harris, the ten free clinics in West Virginia treated 60,000 patients. In total, he said the clinics have been seeing more patients since ACA started being implemented.

“The Affordable Care Act is not affordable for poor people. It’s just not. We had great hopes. I had great hopes that we would be able to reduce what we have to do as a safety net because there would be access available, but that’s not the case,” Harris said.

“We’re getting busier, not less busy.”

That’s why he’s arguing against the total proposed 52.7 percent cut.

Harris noted Medicaid reimbursements for the free clinics are lower than those for other healthcare facilities. He’s calling on the DHHR and lawmakers to negotiate a smaller budget reduction, at least initially, to allow time for those reimbursement rate disparities to be addressed.