Nearly 2,000 Uninsured Americans Seek Treatment in Fairgrounds Barn

[FourScore]

A morning fog rises outside the site of the Remote Area Medical clinic at the Wise County Fairgrounds July 27, 2008 in Wise, Virginia. The free weekend clinic, which serves on a first come, first serve basis, is the largest non-governmental clinic of its nature in the United States. Some 1,400 volunteer dentists, doctors and support staff treated more than 2,500 people in 2 1/2 days. Wise County, located in the mountains of Appalachia, is one of the poorest areas of the nation, and few residents there have full health insurance. http://www.daylife.com/photo/02h04BWcP0duf?q=Wise+County

From DK:
Nearly 2,000 Americans Seek Treatment in Fairgrounds Barn (Updated with Photos)
by The Bagof Health and Politics
Sat Jul 25, 2009 at 12:56:55 PM PDT

Former insurance executive Wendell Potter told Bill Moyers that he left the insurance industry after attending the Wise County health fair. Potter told Moyers that he saw people being treated in animal stalls and contrasted it with the gold-plated silverware found on the corporate jets he flew. It rekindled something in Potter's conscience, and he decided to testify about insurance industry abuses at Congressional hearings on health care reform. Despite Potter's efforts, people are still being treated in animal stalls. The Wise County free health care clinic is being held this weekend. So far, nearly 2,000 Appalachian residents, all of whom can't afford to be treated at doctor's offices due to the lack of affordable and accessible heath insurance, have been treated in the animal stalls of the Wise County Fairgrounds...

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/7/25/757761/-Nearly-2,000-Americans-Seek-Treatment-in-Fairgrounds-Barn-(Updated-with-Photos)




The Local News:
Annual Free Clinic Set Up At Wise County Fairgrounds Sees Record-Setting Day
By Debra McCown
Reporter / Bristol Herald Courier
Published: July 25, 2009

WISE, Va. – It’s not yet 5 a.m., but people are emerging from their cars, a few scurrying to pack up tents and camp stoves, bustling to be ready, hoping to have the opportunity to receive health care.
As wisps of pink sunlight began coloring the clouds, the masses huddle at the gate under a misty dawn, waiting for their numbers to be called.

The grassy parking lot is full. Beyond the fence, the cars are stacked up for miles. A snake of headlights is visible in the semi-dark along the curvy length of Hurricane Road, waiting to access the Wise County Fairgrounds.

These are the modern-day breadlines: people desperate not for food, but for health care.

“We are working taxpaying jobs, paying taxes, and we can’t get insurance because we make $6.55 an hour,” said Laura Head, 32, of Rogersville, Tenn., the first person in line Friday for the first day of the Remote Area Medical clinic, an annual three-day event offering free medical care. “This is really a great beneficial thing, but it doesn’t have to be this way; we could all have insurance.”

A single mother of three who mows yards and moves trailers for a living, Head said she arrived at the fairgrounds Tuesday, to camp out at the fairgrounds until the health fair began Friday morning. Her motivation was simple: severe, constant pain.

Close to two years ago, her boyfriend smashed her teeth, she said – but, without the $6,000 needed to have the teeth pulled she has endured infection after infection, making literally 100 visits to the emergency room for antibiotics and pain medication.

She’s been billed between $240 and $290 a visit, she said – and, even after racking up bills far higher than the cost of extracting the teeth, she was stuck with them.

“I wanted my teeth fixed and I wanted my health problems to be taken care of,” she said when asked why she took such great lengths to be first in line. “I wanted to make sure mine got done.”

Scott Syverud, an emergency room doctor at the University of Virginia who came to volunteer at RAM, said Head’s problem is not unique; dental pain is the most common complaint at American emergency departments.

“I see it every day and every night,” Syverud said. “This is what I see in the emergency department every day, it’s just bigger here. It’s harder to ignore.”

The lack of access to health and dental care is not an Appalachian problem, he said – it’s a problem all across the nation...

http://www2.tricities.com/tri/news/local/article/annual_free_clinic_set_up_at_wise_county_fairgrounds_sees_record-setting_da/29451/




A slideshow:
http://www.dailykos.com/comments/2009/7/25/145730/065/48#c48




Photos from Reuters:
http://www.daylife.com/search/photos/1/grid?q=Wise+County

Here are a few:

[saltpoint]

1. No sign of any Republican Senators anywhere in those photos.

Hey. Maybe they already have health care or something.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

2. This is heartbreaking...

And obscene.

Nobody should have to live like this.

The insurance executives should be forced to come out and volunteer their help at this.

K&R

[Joe the Liberal]

3. And all we are likely to get is a watered down public option. n/t

[crickets]

4. The expression on every face says it all. -nt

[daughter of liberty2]

5. kick

:kick:

[stuball111]

6. It's a fucking disgrace...

And any nutjob that tries to say America has the best health care in the world, ought to be pissed on and THEN shot.

[Historic NY]

7. Somebody should send these to the Blue dogs & Baucas.....

the richest country in the world and were treating people in a farm yard.

[mtnester]

9. i"m sorry, this ought to be sent to the Obama's as well

single payer, right now.

[aquart]

8. This does not happen in France. Or Canada. Or Norway. Or...

Any civilized western nation. Except ours.

[tj2001]

12. Even people in Hong Kong and Taiwan have universal health care

They actually have an excellent system. And Japan has had one for years.

[FourScore]

14. The really sad part

is that most of these people don't even vote. And those who do, will vote completely against their own interests and vote republican.

[aquart]

19. No wonder they can afford to work for pennies.

[ipaint]

10. The america dream

for some anyway:

The list of members who have personal investments in the corporations that will be affected by the legislation — which President Obama has called this year’s highest domestic priority — includes Congress’s most powerful leaders and a bipartisan collection of lawmakers in key committee posts. Their total health-care holdings could be worth $27 million, because congressional financial disclosure forms released yesterday require reporting of only broad ranges of holdings rather than precise values of assets.

Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), for instance, has at least $50,000 invested in a health-care index, and Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), a senior member of the health committee, has between $254,000 and $560,000 worth of stock holdings in major health-care companies, including Bristol-Myers Squibb and Merck.

The family of Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.), a senior member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee drafting that chamber’s legislation, held at least $3.2 million in more than 20 health-care companies at the end of last year.

...On that 22-member panel, at least eight senators have financial interests in the health-care industry worth a minimum of $600,000 -- and potentially worth as much as $1.9 million. The investors include Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.), a senior member of the panel, who holds at least $165,000 in pharmaceutical and medical stocks, and freshman Sen. Kay Hagan (D-N.C.), who holds at least $180,000 in investments in more than 20 health-care companies.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/12/AR2009061204075.html?sid=ST2009061204093

[Orwellian_Ghost]

11. K&R

[Deb]

13. Conservative Idont care

Americans are begging for it.

How can this be acceptable to even the worst Congressional filth?

[Odin2005]

15. K&R

[Wednesdays]

16. K&R

:kick:

[devilgrrl]

17. Well, if those people would just take better care of themselves!!!

:sarcasm:

I'd love to hear from all the assholes who say shit like that! :mad:

[BlooInBloo]

18. It's a lie. republicans tell me we have the best health care system in the world....

And single-payer or nothing people say they'd rather have nothing.