10/08/2026
Sharing a letter to the editor from AVHC's Board of Directors:
Editor:
For more than four decades, the Anderson Valley Health Center has provided essential health care to the residents of Anderson Valley and surrounding communities. Having a health clinic close to home is critical to the health and well-being of our community.
Our Health Center serves Anderson Valley's diverse population, including our seniors, Latino community, as well as children, working families and those who are uninsured or underinsured. Providing accessible, culturally responsive care close to home is far superior to our community facing long travel times to interact with an impersonal and unfamiliar health care system.
Proposition 44 threatens the financial stability of community health centers like ours. Its requirement that clinics spend 90% of revenue directly on health-care services fails to recognize the costs necessary to operate a modern rural clinic. Technology, facilities, recruiting and retaining qualified staff, regulatory compliance and other essential functions all make patient care possible.
Statewide, Prop. 44 is projected to take $1.7 billion away from community health clinics in its first year. For small rural clinics operating with limited resources, reductions of this magnitude could mean fewer services, fewer providers or, in the worst case, closure.
If our community health center were lost or significantly reduced, Anderson Valley residents would not stop needing care. We would all have to travel farther, delay treatment, or turn to hospital emergency departments. This means worse health outcomes and higher costs for patients.
Rural communities need stronger community health centers, not policies that make it harder for them to survive.
The Anderson Valley Health Center Board of Directors urges our community to vote NO on Proposition 44 this November.
Anderson Valley Health Center Board of Directors
