Health

Promote Innovations in Medicaid Funding to Support Broader Health Outcomes

Medicaid provides health coverage to millions of Americans, including eligible low-income adults, children, pregnant women, elderly adults, and people with disabilities. LISC supports:

• Adopting recommendations outlined in the Convergence Collaborative Social Factors of Health Blueprint. Particularly relevant to LISC are the recommendations in the Financing subsection, like encouraging utilization of Medicaid 1115 waivers to pay for some housing, nutrition, and other non-medical services in experimental programs seeking to improve outcomes for some high-cost populations.
• Coordinating housing and Medicaid housing-related supportive services. Enact the Housing Alignment and Coordination of Critical and Effective Supportive Health Services (ACCESS) Act, which would establish joint guidance from the U.S. Department of the Treasury, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) on how local organizations can combine housing tax credits, operating subsidies, and Medicaid to create supportive housing.

Provide Capacity Building Resources for Community-Based Health Organizations

Despite playing a pivotal role in connecting individuals to essential support services and programs that address factors influencing health, many community-based organizations struggle to maintain basic operations and expand access to services. LISC supports:

• Establishing a capacity building program for community-based organizations that leverages private-sector resources by directing funding to intermediaries to provide financial resources, technical assistance, and capacity support to community-based organizations that are addressing health-related social needs.
• Strengthening public-private partnerships that implement networks linking health and social services. Social service networks (largely powered by community-based organizations) are not generally connected to the health care system in a sustainable, standardized way, which limits data sharing, shared accountability, and service coordination. LISC supports the adoption of legislation like the Leveraging Integrated Networks in Communities (LINC) to Address Social Needs Act and initiatives like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Social Determinants of Health Accelerator Plans, which enable state, local, territorial, and Tribal jurisdictions, through public-private partnerships, to leverage local expertise and technology to overcome longstanding challenges in helping to connect people to food, housing, child development, job training, and transportation supports and services.

Strengthen the Network of Community Health Centers

Community Health Centers (CHCs), also known as Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs), provide primary medical services to more than 32 million people at over 16,000 sites in urban and rural communities across the country. By helping to reduce instances where patients have to seek initial treatments and services in hospital settings, CHCs produce an estimated $24 billion in annual health savings. Recent research indicates that CHCs are likely to experience significant losses as the cost of operations and service delivery continues to outpace revenue. LISC’s policy priorities for CHCs include:

• Full funding for Section 330 grants. Congress should robustly fund the CHC Program of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) (commonly known as “330 Grants”). This program provides, among other vital resources, operating grants to CHCs, and loan guarantees to private-sector lenders to support the development and rehabilitation of CHC facilities. We support long-term authorization of the mandatory expense accounts and continued supplemental funding as necessary through annual appropriations.
• More education and outreach to raise awareness about the Loan Guarantee Program. The Health Center Facility Loan Guarantee Program guarantees up to 80% of the principal and interest on loans for capital projects (construction, expansion, etc.) for health centers, reducing financing costs. LISC encourages HHS to market the program to both lenders and CHCs, including through partnerships with trade associations and other governmental agencies such as the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund (CDFI Fund), and to provide program guidance documents to indicate how the funds can be twinned with other federal subsidy sources, including New Markets Tax Credits.