Click HERE for VIDEO of United States Senator Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) visiting the Neighborhood Health at East Side health center in Nashville, where he learned more about what the center is doing to provide access to health care services in urban, underserved areas of Nashville.
"Middle Tennessee students are going back to school, but community health centers, like the one here in East Nashville where I visited today, has been busy for the last several weeks working with parents and students to make sure kindergarners and 7thgraders have their vaccinations, because if they don't, they are sent home after nine days. Because they want the whole school to be healthy," Alexander said. "That's not all the community health centers do in Tennessee across our country. They provide primary health care services to thousands of Tennesseans, some of them are uninsured and some have insurance and high deductibles. I am working hard to try to make sure these community health centers are funded for the next five years. I've introduced legislation to do that with Senator Patty Murray of Washington. It has passed the Senate health committee I chair, and my hope is it can be done by the end of September."
Over 422,000 patients received health care services in 2017 from the 192 community health center clinic locations in Tennessee. Alexander introduced bipartisan legislation - the Lower Health Care Costs Act of 2019 - earlier this year, and the bill passed out of the health committee the senator chairs in June by a vote of 20-3. In addition to extending funding for community health centers, the legislation ends surprise medical billing, lowers prescription drug prices, increases transparency, improves public health, makes electronic medical records work better, and raises the minimum age for purchasing any tobacco product from 18 to 21. Learn more HERE.
Brian Haile, the CEO of Neighborhood Health, took the senator around the center. B-roll of the tour is available HERE.