The Supreme Courts recent ruling on the Affordable Care Act has ignited another round of debate over health care reform.

Unfortunately, that debate is not a sincere effort by interested parties to find a workable solution to the health care needs of the 40 million people in this country that do not have health insurance. Instead, the issue of health care reform has become just another topic that political partisans distort to further their own agenda.

At United Community and Family Services, we do not have the luxury of waiting for the political process to return to reason. We must meet the growing need for our services every day.

Each day, people come to our health centers for comprehensive health services. We offer pediatric and primary care, dental care, behavioral health and womens health services to residents of Eastern Connecticut without regard to their ability to pay.

In the past year, we provided more than 88,000 visits, an increase of 18 percent from the year before.

Because of the growing demand, we are renovating our health center in Norwich, planning to expand our health center in Jewett City and looking at opening a new health center in Plainfield. Weve added providers in our dental, primary care and behavioral health practices, and have added staff in our Access to Care program that helps people determine if they qualify for Medicaid or other programs providing support for health services.

In the past 12 months alone, this free service has helped more than 2,255 people in the region qualify for Medicaid and other entitlement programs.

To meet the needs of our patients, we must take advantage of every resource available to us within the current system. In the past year, with the great support of our area legislators and Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, we were fortunate to receive bond money from the state to support the renovation of our Norwich Health Center.

Federal assistance

On the federal level, we continue to work with U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney, D-2nd District, and our federal legislative delegation to secure designation as a funded Federally Qualified Health Center, which will enable us to further expand our services.

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Chuck Seeman: Put aside partisanship to meet health needs