Discussing Health Centers with Congressman Tiberi

During the Easter recess, Congressman Pat Tiberi who represents Ohio’s 12th district visited Zanesville. While in town, we discussed many issues with him. One of which is the Muskingum Valley Health Center.

During his visit, Congressman Tiberi toured the center. It’s one of many similar health centers in the 12th district and in the nation. Here is a portion of our conversation with the Congressman.

“Many counties have them,” Tiberi said. “Not all, but many do. In Ohio I have several in my Congressional District. One that I haven’t had a chance to visit is the one here in Zanesville, and I gotta tell ya, it’s the best one that I’ve seen.”

He explained what he means by that.

“State of the art equipment, a nice physical facility as well. But the people ultimately make it what it is, and a great group of professionals in Zanesville that are the community health centers. It’s a great asset for a community.”

MVHC serves a wide clientele. And it needs federal funding to do so. Right before the Easter recess, the House of Representatives passed a bill to extend funding for health centers. But if it doesn’t pass the Senate and get the President’s signature, MVHC faces the possibility of staff reductions when funding ends in the fall.

“The good news is on the health centers, we just passed the bill to extend funding for two years,” Tiberi said. “So, the good news is that the funding will not lapse. It’ll continue going forward for another two years.”

I asked him why he felt it was important to pass the bill.

“Well because it was going to be expiring, and we have had instances in the past where that expiration even if it lapses a few weeks, there’s a lot of uncertainty,” Tiberi said. “So important, even though that funding didn’t expire until September, really important now to again provide that long term commitment so community health centers can focus on patients and not funding.”

This is just the first of many parts of our conversation with the congressman. We will have the next section of the interview on the news Sunday night. In that discussion, the Congressman discusses why he voted to pass the Department of Homeland Security Funding Bill despite his objections to President Obama’s recent Executive Order on immigration, which is included in the bill.