A year after Medicaid expansion, hundreds still flock to rural medical clinic in Southwest Virginia
WISE — Nina Black has been coming to Remote Area Medical’s clinic in Wise for at least 12 of the 20 years it’s been running. This year was different: Black was one of about 290,000 Virginians covered under the state’s new Medicaid expansion, making 2019 the first time she’s had insurance coverage in years.
“I’ve got a doctor on a sliding fee scale I can see, but if she has to refer me to another doctor, until I actually got Medicaid, I couldn’t go anywhere,” said Black, who lives in Pennington Gap in Lee County, as she sifted through an array of eyeglasses laid out on a table.
“I get one visit to an eye doctor and one to a dentist, maybe two, depending on how much it costs,” Black said. “I did benefit from the expansion, but it’s still a lot easier for me to just come up here and get free eyeglasses.”
This year’s RAM Clinic in Wise County last weekend marked the first since Virginia implemented Medicaid expansion, as well as the first since RAM founder Stan Brock died last August. In the two decades since he brought RAM to the Wise County Fairgrounds to dispense free dental, vision and medical care, the event has swelled to treat more than 1,000 people each year.
Read more: https://www.virginiamercury.com/2019/07/01/a-year-after-medicaid-expansion-hundreds-still-flock-to-rural-medical-clinic-in-southwest-virginia/