Senator Tom Harkin visited the Davenport Community Health Center to celebrate National Health Center Week and the 40th anniversary of the Community Health Center program. Senator Harkin has been a long-time advocate for Iowa's 12 federally-funded community health centers. He obtained funds for the facilities' construction, equipment purchases, and dental expansions through his work on the Labor, HHS and Education Appropriations subcommittee. In FY 2005, Harkin also secured funds for a statewide Health IT system that will bring Iowa's community health centers to the cutting edge of electronic health records and e-prescribing technology.

I was excited to visit Davenport this morning to celebrate National Health Center Week and to congratulate Davenport's Community Health Center. It's always great to see Jim Stewart, CEO of the Davenport CHC. He has helped to put together one of the best CHC's around. It even has a dental clinic! I hope other CHC's will follow Davenport's lead and add dental services soon.

During my visit, I was also happily surprised to see Lisa Cox, one of my former DC staffers who now works for the National Association of Community Health centers. I always enjoy running into former Harkinistas, and I'm very proud of Lisa!

In addition to celebrating the Davenport CHC, we also recognized pharmaceutical manufacturer Pfizer for their program "Share the Care" which provides uninsured, CHC patients with Pfizer medicines at no cost. Pfizer does more than any other pharmaceutical company to get prescription drugs to CHC's and to those who need it most. I hope that other companies follow their lead.