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Vendaval -> "Uninsured travel from across US for Free Healthcare" (8/21/2009 1:23:19 PM)
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"Democracy Now!" on National Public Radio recently aired a program about the relief group Remote Area Medical. This NGO does not travel to foreign countries but operates right here in the USA. Here is an excerpt that paints a very vivid picture of the healthcare crisis in the USA for the poor and working poor and uninsured.
Uninsured Travel from Across US for Free Healthcare from Relief Group Remote Area Medical
"AMY GOODMAN: Well, you’ve certainly had an effect. Last week on Democracy Now!, we aired an extended interview with the former healthcare executive turned whistleblower Wendell Potter. For years, he served as head of corporate communications. He was the chief spokesperson for CIGNA, one of the nation’s largest health insurance companies. I asked him what motivated him to turn from being an industry mouthpiece to speaking out against the health insurance companies he used to work for.
WENDELL POTTER: I was very isolated, along with most insurance company executives who deal with numbers all the time—profit margins and medical loss ratios and earnings per share and how many millions of members you have, or things like that. It’s just—they’re just numbers. And I didn’t really associate that with real people as much as I should and as much as most insurance company executives should, until I went to visit my relatives in Tennessee.
And while I was there, I happened to learn about a healthcare expedition that was being held at a nearby town across the state line in Virginia. And I was intrigued, borrowed my dad’s car and drove up to Wise County to see what was going on there. And this expedition was being held at the Wise County fairgrounds, and it was being put on by this group called Remote Area Medical that got its start several years ago taking volunteer doctors from this country to remote villages in South America, where people really don’t have any access to medical care. The founder realized pretty soon, though, that the need in this country is very, very great, and he started holding similar expeditions in rural communities throughout the country. And this one was nearby. I decided to check it out.
I didn’t have any idea what to expect, but when I walked through the fairground gates, it was just absolutely overwhelming. What I saw were people who were lined up. It was raining that day. They were lined up in the rain by the hundreds, waiting to get care that was being donated by doctors and nurses and dentists and other caregivers, and they were being treated in animal stalls. Volunteers had come to disinfect the animal stalls. They also had set up tents. It looked like a MASH unit. It looked like this could have been something that was happening in a war-torn country, and war refugees were there to get their care. It was just unbelievable, and it just drove it home to me, maybe for the first time, that we were talking about real human beings and not just numbers."
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/7/22/uninsured_travel_from_across_us_for
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