Community health centers serving low-income Coloradans will face a reckoning if the government shutdown goes on too long — but right now, they can’t be sure when “too long” will be.
The federal community health center fund, which pays about $111 million annually to Colorado clinics to cover care for uninsured people, lapsed at the end of September , though centers can continue to draw down money as long as their grants last, said Ross Brooks, president and CEO of the Colorado Community Health Network.
Not all centers operate on the same cycle, so some might have six months left in their grants, while others only have one or two months, he said.
“I’m hopeful that the federal government’s going to come to a resolution on it,” he said. “If it goes more than two to three months, I think w