By David Gram
The Associated Press

PLAINFIELD -- Clinton Adams knows where to go when complications from his emphysema or diabetes flare up.

A group of doctors, dentists and health professionals known simply as The Health Center "are always able to squeeze me in."

Adams, a 59-year-old former maintenance man and warehouse supervisor from Berlin, was there Thursday, hoping his cold wouldn't complicate his underlying conditions and turn to pneumonia.

As he waited in an examination room, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., was gathering with The Health Center's staff, board members and others in the lobby to celebrate a new shot of federal funding.

Sanders announced that Congress had recently approved a $500 million increase in spending on "federally qualified health centers" -- above what had been a budget of $1.9 billion for the 800 such facilities around the country.

Sanders also announced that The Health Center has recently been approved as Vermont's sixth fully qualified center under the federal program, which is designed to deliver health care to rural and other underserved areas around the country.

Combined, the two pieces of news mean The Health Center will receive more than $566,000 in federal funds per year for the foreseeable future. The money couldn't be coming at a better time, said Dr. John Matthew, a physician who helped found it in 1973.

The Plainfield center has grown from about 1,200 patients in the early days to 8,400, Matthew said, and is bursting at the seams. It's nearing completion of a fund-raising drive to more than double the building's size and add to its staff, which will enable it to serve about 12,000 patients in five to seven years, the doctor added.

The new federal money "will allow us to offer social service, outreach, screening, education and other programs that we could not provide before," Matthew said. "The designation also helps underwrite our sliding fee scale for uninsured, low-income individuals."

Vermont's six centers, which have a total of 22 central and satellite offices around Vermont, include facilities in Burlington; Northern Counties Health Care, which serves Caledonia and Essex counties; and centers in Richford, Rutland and Wells River.

Sanders said a facility in Morrisville is working on becoming a federally qualified health center, and plans are in the works for at least three more, to serve southeastern Vermont and Addison and Bennington counties.

Sanders said his goal is to see every Vermont resident living a short drive from a facility that can provide the full range of primary and preventive care.

"Community health centers are providing high-quality health care, low-cost prescription drugs, dental care and mental health counseling in a very cost-effective way," Sanders said.

The centers, which turn no one away, offer medical, dental, mental health care, physical therapy and other services. Geared to preventive care and to keeping patients out of hospitals, they help to keep Medicaid billing among their patients well below the national norm, said David Reynolds, Sanders' senior health policy adviser.

Adams credited the center with keeping him alive. "I love these people, I really do," he said. "They're like family."