“Health is basic to everything. Health is one of the surest guarantees of ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.’ If a baby spends nine months in the womb of a healthy mother, chances are he can spend a healthy life in society. If a child grows up with the right nutrition, chances are he can stay in school, stay with a job, stay with his family. If a man has access to medical care, he can go to the hospital before he gets sick—not after he gets sick.”
Our Quote of the Week underlines the central role that good health plays in our ability to pursue the opportunities that will allow us to live life to the fullest.
This week’s quote is from Sargent Shriver’s 1967 Speech at the Dedication Ceremony of the South Central Multi-Purpose Health Services Center. During his time leading the War on Poverty, Shriver made health a key component of his work because he knew that access to health care for all was crucial in order to create a stable, prosperous society. He also knew that those who were struggling economically did not have access to health care, and to address what he considered to be an injustice such as this, he included Neighborhood Health Centers among the programs of the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO).
As with all of the programs administered by the OEO, Shriver stressed that the Neighborhood Health Centers were community-focused, and as such, they could build something positive within communities.
"[T]his new health center is more than just another clinic. It represents not a committee of people—but a community of people. People who said the three most challenging, words in history: ‘Let’s change things.’ Not by burning down, but by building up.”
Today, the National Association of Community Health Centers continues the legacy of the Centers, providing health care in low-income communities. Despite this ongoing commitment to provide health care to those who cannot afford it, millions are now at risk of losing their health care because of the provisions laid out in the federal funding bill that passed in the US Congress last week, which will, among other changes:
- add a work requirement with a significant paperwork burden for Medicaid recipients;
- force up to 300 rural hospitals to cut back or eliminate care;
- make plans under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) more difficult to keep;
- raise out-of-pocket expenses for Medicaid;
- force documented immigrants, including asylum seekers and refugees, off ACA plans.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that these cuts, which are slated to take effect at the end of 2026, will cause 17 million people to lose health care coverage—an intolerable number.
As we move forward, let us commit to reversing this inhumane trend of robbing our communities of precious health services. If we want to truly “make America great,” let’s start with the basics: let’s keep all our people healthy and strong so that they may live up to their full potential.
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