Give free clinics a seat at reform table

At charity clinics throughout Georgia, patients with no health insurance or who don't qualify for government programs jam telephone lines to obtain an appointment. If the clinic doesn't take appointments, patients line up at the doors and wait for hours for a chance to see a doctor, nurse or dentist.

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In 2008, Georgia's 100-plus charity clinics cared for more than 175,000 patients. This year, some clinics are seeing as much as a 300 percent increase in patients due to the state's record unemployment rate. Still, many get turned away.

Community-based clinics use volunteers to provide care and charge little to nothing for patients who have no other means of accessing health care. Georgia's charity clinics provide between $200 and $400 million annually in uncompensated care, according to a 2005 state auditor's report. That amount will likely be even greater this year because of the rising number of unemployed.

Washington politicians should recognize the important and mostly invisible role these clinics play in the American health care delivery system and examine how they save taxpayer money. In 2008, the nation's 1,200 charity clinics served 4 million patients. That's 4 million patients, often without the ability to pay, who didn't use the government as a source for their health care.

These facts should prompt President Obama to give charity clinics a seat at the table to help devise a healthcare strategy for the 21st Century.

But there are other reasons as well. During the 2008 campaign, Obama stressed making preventive medicine more accessible.

At charity clinics, there is a significant focus on disease prevention, especially diabetes, hypertension and cardiovascular disease. Medications are dispensed or drug discount cards are distributed to patients with directions for low-cost generics. This keeps patients from developing more serious conditions that are far more costly and difficult to treat. Other reasons:

- Charity clinics are sponsored by the private sector, such as churches, medical societies, Lion's Clubs and other community groups. They don't get entangled in the mess and costs of government bureaucracy when dispensing health care. It's a simple delivery system.

- The Congressional Budget Office last month reported that 36 million Americans would still remain uninsured even if the Senate's $1.6 trillion health care proposal passed. It is most likely charity clinics will wind up taking care of many of those remaining uninsured patients.

- The uninsured receive about $1,500 in free health care annually, according to the National Center for Policy Analysis. Some of that care is being dispensed at charity clinics.

- Hospitals throughout the country are turning away patients with non-life threatening emergencies - they have to. Large hospitals in particular report overcrowding and long waits in their emergency rooms, forcing them to divert patients. This makes charity clinics a more viable option for non-emergency care, since the majority provide patients a home for ongoing primary care.

As one of his first initiatives as president, Obama pushed to expand a national service corps by calling for more citizen participation in community service. What better way for citizens to give back to their neighbors than to volunteer at a charity clinic as a staffer or medical professional?

The federal government could support charity clinics by encouraging education partnerships with medical training facilities, offer block grants to cover administrative costs, incentives for drug companies to donate pharmaceuticals and broader medical malpractice protection for physicians and other providers who volunteer their time.

The issue of the uninsured is only going to get worse as the nation's unemployment rate approaches double digits. Many Americans who have lost their health insurance and can't afford COBRA or a temporary health policy are showing up at charity clinics.

Until we find solutions to get more Americans covered by health insurance, the federal government needs to encourage the creation and stabilization of additional charity clinics run by the private sector and staffed by physicians, nurses and dentists who donate their time and are experts.

It's a cost-effective solution that fits into our new president's challenge to return to a spirit of giving.

(Ross Mason is president of the board of directors of Georgia Free Clinic Network and a senior fellow at the Georgia Public Policy Foundation.)