Letter: Improving health care access in the Eagle River Valley

I read your article today on efforts to improve health care access in the Eagle River Valley. As a community member, the Mountain Healthcare Coalition sounds like a worthwhile initiative to try to improve health insurance affordability.

I was very surprised to not see any mention of Mountain Family Health Center in the article. I want to highlight Mountain Family as a key community partner that’s helping to address access to affordable care in the community. 

Mountain Family provides affordable primary medical, dental and behavioral health care to 24,000 patients in Eagle, Garfield, and Pitkin counties. The vast majority of MFHC patients are uninsured (more than 40% ) and/or are covered by Medicaid (more than 30%). I applaud any efforts to help uninsured and underinsured members of our community obtain affordable and equitable health insurance and care in the community. Mountain Family has been at it for decades, and I am a loyal supporter of their great work! I hope they are a key part of the planning going forward.

Pete Leibig
Eagle