In my wildest imagination I never thought that the fifth of six children born to Helen and Buddy Watts - in a poor black neighborhood in the poor rural community of Eufaula Oklahoma - would someday be called Congressman.

I'm still really close with everyone at home and their parents - and their brothers and sisters. I was so so so lucky to grow up as part of a community and I don't take that for granted. I try very hard to stay part of it.

Here at home when Americans were standing in long lines to give blood after the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon we squandered an obvious opportunity to make service a noble cause again and rekindle an American spirit of community.

However many skilled medical volunteers are turned away because community health centers cannot afford to cover their additional medical liability insurance.

This change to a higher phase of alert is a signal to governments to ministries of health and other ministries to the pharmaceutical industry and the business community that certain actions now should be undertaken with increased urgency and at an accelerated pace.

I brought together experts from health care business academic institutions and the community to develop a comprehensive blueprint for eliminating racial and ethnic disparities in health care in the City of Boston.

As grateful as we are for all the work the community health centers do it is also important that we recognize that they cannot solve the health care crisis facing our Nation by themselves.

Community health centers do a great deal with limited resources. They provide critical medical care services to many who would otherwise have no other place to go or would end up in an emergency room.

In Illinois community migrant homeless and public housing health centers operate 268 primary care sites and serve close to 1 million patients every year.

We need a vibrant Medicaid program and strategies to expand affordable access to health care for all especially for the specialty care services that community health centers do not provide.