The Bureau of Primary Health Care (BPHC) is a part of the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), of the United States Department of Health and Human Services. HRSA helps fund, staff and support a national network of health clinics for people who otherwise would have little or no access to care. BPHC funds health centers in underserved communities, providing access to high quality, family oriented, comprehensive primary and preventive health care for people who are low-income, uninsured or face other obstacles to getting health care. The Bureau is headed by Associate Administrator Jim Macrae and Deputy Associate Administrator Tonya Bowers. History The Bureau was formed in 1982 as a merge of the Bureau of Medical Services and the Bureau of Community Health Services. Predecessors The Bureau of Primary Health Care is the direct descendant of the oldest function of the U.S. Public Health Service (PHS): the system of Marine Hospitals founded in 1798. When the PHS's predecessor, the Marine Hospital Service, first divided itself into divisions in 1899, the hospitals became part of the Division of Marine Hospitals and Relief. In 1944, it was renamed the Division of Hospitals. As part of the PHS reorganizations of 1966–1973, it became part of the Federal Health Programs Service within the Health Services and Mental Health Administration in 1968, and then became the (second) Bureau of Medical Services within the Health Services Administration in 1973. In 1981, budget cuts imposed by the Reagan administration forced the end of PHS hospital system, with the last eight hospitals transferred to other organizations. The system of Community Health Centers has a different origin. They have their roots in the Migrant Health Act of 1962 and the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, which established funding for the first community-based clinics that were to become today’s Health Center Program. The Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 provided Federal funds for two "neighborhood health centers," which were launched in 1965 by Jack Geiger and Count Gibson, physicians at Tufts University in Boston. Federal support for entities that would later be called health centers began in 1962 with passage of the Migrant Health Act, which funded medical and support services for migrant and seasonal farmworkers and their family members. In the mid-1970s, Congress permanently authorized neighborhood health centers as “community health centers” and “migrant health centers” under sections 329 and 330 of the Public Health Service Act. These programs were