CCHN Joins in Celebration and Working for Justice and Fairness in Health Care System

Statement attributable to
Polly Anderson
Vice President of Strategy and Financing
Colorado Community Health Network (CCHN)

DENVER―Today, Colorado Community Health Network (CCHN) will join our colleagues in celebrating a historic inauguration, along with the opportunities it will bring. We look forward to working with the Biden/Harris administration, as well as members of Congress, Democrats, Republicans, and Independents, to support Community Health Centers (CHCs) in Colorado and across the nation.

We are optimistic that the new administration will fight for justice and fairness in health care, and we look forward to working alongside them to do so. President Joe Biden proposes support to expand the CHC program to fight health disparities in the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond. CHCs have historically cared for hard-to-reach populations and others who are left out of the health care system. CHCs are a trusted source of health care and have established relationships with their patients, so their role in the vaccine delivery, like their role during the whole pandemic, is crucial.

The Biden plan includes mobilizing federally supported vaccination sites across the country, invoking the Defense Production Act to boost vaccine supply and increasing the public health force. The plan will deploy mobile clinics, moving from community to community, that will partner with CHCs and local primary care doctors to offer vaccines to hard-hit and hard-to-reach communities.

All 20 Colorado CHCs are providing COVID-19 testing, participating in vaccination efforts as vaccine supplies become available, and providing in-person and virtual health care visits.

The year 2020 brought us not only the COVID-19 pandemic but a long-overdue wide-spread call to action to end systemic racism and assure full participation by all in our democracy. We hope that in the coming years, working with the new administration, members of Congress, and our communities, we will be able to reflect the needs and wants of this democracy in our work at CCHN.

 # # #

To interview Ms. Anderson, please contact Maureen Maxwell at (303) 913-9078 or maureen@cchn.org.

 The Colorado Community Health Network (CCHN) is the unified voice for Colorado’s 20 Community Health Centers (CHCs) and their patients. CHCs provide a health care home for more than 852,000 of their community members – more than one in seven people in Colorado – from 62 of the state’s 64 counties. Without CHCs, hundreds of thousands of Colorado’s low-income families and individuals would have no regular source of health care. CCHN’s mission is to increase access to high quality health care for people in need in Colorado. For more information about CCHN, please visit https://cchn.org/.

To learn more about careers at Community Health Centers, please visit https://missiondrivencareers.org/.