President Obama's Stimulus Plan $$$ Is Keeping Not-For-Profit Clinics Open To Care For The Uninsured

[ClarkUSA]

This hopeful scenario has been played out in every state as strapped not-for-profit medical clinics serving poor areas get a new lease
on life: The Nanjemoy Community Center clinic in Maryland was scheduled to close, leaving uninsured residents without health care options but the stimulus package provided money to stay open.

In one of the world's most advanced medical systems and one of America's wealthiest states, Foerter and her clinic are a lifeline for hundreds of poor and working-class residents of Nanjemoy, an isolated peninsula in rural southwestern Charles County. Dozens of people here live without running water, some in unheated trailers or shacks, just 37 miles from Washington. There is no grocery store and no gas station, no Laundromat or restaurant.

This spring, Foerter told them that the clinic's services almost certainly would be ending in the next few months. The recession has hit nonprofit health clinics hard. This one had lost $150,000 during each of the past 14 years, and other grants were drying up. The board of Greater Baden Medical Services, which runs the clinic tucked inside the Nanjemoy Community Center, decided it no longer could be sustained and voted to close it.

And then, just as some patients had given up on the idea of affordable medical care within their reach, they received word of a small miracle: Two weeks ago, the federal government announced that all but a handful of the nation's health clinics would receive a total of $2 billion through the federal stimulus package. Greater Baden was awarded $270,372, enough to keep Nanjemoy Health Services open for two years.

"The fact that someone stepped in and did something about the crisis that this was going to cause is reason for celebration," said Rick Campbell, a longtime patient who has multiple sclerosis... for the clinic's 750 patients, there is simply nowhere else to go.

Thank you, President Obama, for looking out for the little guy.