Congresswoman Cheri Bustos announced that the Eagle View Community Health System will receive $1,304,794 in federal funding, allowing them to continue providing quality medical, dental and behavioral care to Henderson County’s rural residents.In a statement, Bustos said “Families in rural America face unique challenges when it comes to accessing affordable health care.” This grant has been awarded through the Department of Health and Human Services’ Health Center Cluster Program that helps community-based health care organizations provide primary care for underserved communities. Lori Sutton, Executive Director of the Eagle View Community Health System said “Grant funding provides a significant portion of our income, which enables us to offer quality and affordable primary and preventive care services under one roof that include primary medical care, comprehensive dental services and behavioral health services.” Eagle View draws patients from west-central Illinois and southeast Iowa and is one of the few area providers to accept Iowa and Illinois Medicaid. Eagle View has medical, behavioral health and dental services available at both their location in Oquawka and Stronghurst. Sutton added, “We’re grateful to Congresswoman Bustos for her continued support for facilities that deliver quality, affordable care to families in rural areas like ours.” Bustos fought to include several of her provisions in the 2018 Farm Bill to improve care in rural communities. These provisions included her Rural Health Liaison Act, which creates a new position at the U.S. Department of Agriculture to better serve the health needs of rural America and the Addiction Recovery for Rural Communities Act.
Also late last week, Congresswoman Cheri Bustos helped introduce H.R. 1 – the For the People Act of 2019. This legislation would take numerous steps to clean up corruption in Washington and make Congress more accountable to the people – strengthening ethics laws, reforming big money in our elections and making it easier for citizens to vote. Last year, as Co-Chair of the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee, Congresswoman Bustos and Democratic Leadership unveiled “A Better Deal for our Democracy” to fix Washington’s broken political system. Building on that work, the For the People Act will make it easier to vote. The act implements automatic voter registration, making available early voting and vote by mail, and strengthening our voting system by committing to reauthorize the Voting Rights Act. It also takes on big money in politics – all political organizations are to disclose and make public large donations and updates political advertising laws to modernize with new digital technology. The act also strengthens ethics laws and holds Congress accountable. It establishes a code of conduct and ethics for the Supreme Court and also closes loopholes that allow former Members of Congress to lobby without complying with the required cooling-off period – which will help break the revolving door between industry and the federal government. Bustos said, “This bill is a sorely needed first step to bring more accountability to Congress and clean up the mess in Washington – because for our country to succeed, the voices of ordinary Americans cannot be ignored while the greedy special interests feed at the trough.”
