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            A. The legislature finds that:

            (1) Federally qualified health centers (FQHCs) provide most of the healthcare services required by a substantial number of low-income residents living in the state and therefore constitute an invaluable part of the healthcare delivery system of the state.

            (2) Residents living in rural and medically underserved communities, which consist of sixty-two of the sixty-four Louisiana parishes, have a poorer health status than residents living in other communities in the state and lack access to adequate health care.

            (3) FQHCs are in poor financial condition as a result of payment reductions in the Medicare and Medicaid programs and as a result of the advent and penetration of managed care in the state.

            (4) FQHCs have a difficult time attracting and retaining physicians in their service areas, thereby resulting in a continued shortage of primary health care in the state’s medically underserved communities.

            (5) Absent intervention, continued reductions in the Medicare and Medicaid programs, as well as changes in healthcare reimbursement methodologies and the continued spread of managed care, may result in the closure of the state’s FQHCs, thereby jeopardizing the very existence of a vital link in the healthcare delivery system for residents residing in medically underserved areas of the state.

            (6) FQHCs constitute, in most cases, an important employer of residents from the economically and health distressed areas they serve and thus create a vital economic component of their local communities.

            B. The legislature hereby declares an emergency finding that, absent the enactment of the following provisions, the very existence of Louisiana’s FQHCs are imperiled. The legislature hereby declares that the purpose of this Part is to assure the continued viability of FQHCs. To that end, the provisions of this Part shall be construed liberally and in favor of the purposes of this Part.

            Acts 1997, No. 1473, §1; Redesignated from La. Rev. Stat. 40:1300.132 by HCR 84 of 2015 R.S; Acts 2018, No. 206, §4.