When a Free Yearly Clinic Is Your Only Health Care | Newsweek Key Healthcare Issues

Doctors Within Borders

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Creating a Volunteer Medical Corps for America
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"In the meantime, he believes many of the patients who were turned away will have to make due with visits to the E.R. for tooth pain, where they'll likely be given antibiotics and a pain pill and sent home. "That'll only calm it down for a couple of weeks. It'll come back," he says.

Thankfully, so will RAM.

How to Help
If you'd like to contribute to or volunteer with the Remote Area Medical Foundation go to their Web site.

To volunteer or contribute to The Health Wagon, whose small staff brings health care to the people of Appalachia all year round, and who will be helping some of this year's RAM patients get follow-up treatment for urgent conditions, go to their Web site.

And, to help with education, nutrition and physical activity programs that help impoverished children in rural communities throughout the United States, go the Save the Children U.S.A. Web site.

To help Mission of Mercy, a nonprofit organization that provides free dental care to underserved populations in Virginia and West Virginia, go to the Virginia Dental Association's Web site and scroll to the bottom of the page for donation and volunteering information.

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Posted By: BillsCatz @ 10/22/2008 9:12:31 PM

This has never been a doubt in my mind. Despite a lot no-nothings screeching about how people "could have insurance if they worked harder to get it" -- completely untrue, by the way -- there are places in the US where basic health care is not avaiable. This may be hard to believe for city folks who live within twenty miles of major hospitals, but it's reality. Even in Northern new England health care is limited; there aren't enough people to financially justify a hospital, so for some it's a two hour ride to an emergency room. Two hours with apendicitis or a broken arm or a migraine... Then there are parts of our country where folks can't afford the trip anyhow and the annual state-sponsored health fair is their only exposure to real medical treatment. Ther is no town doctor -- he lives 70 miles away in another county and it takes two months to see him.

I can see no reason for all this wailing about universal health care -- other than the people making the remarks are either ill-informed or just plain envious at the idea of somebody getting care for less than they themselves have to pay. Check out Michael Moores movie "Sicko" before you flap your jaws too hard. Several of the civilized, democratic countries have universal health care -- France, Sweden, Canada and England, for example -- and nothing bad has happened as a result. Every citizen gets an equal shot at good medical care. Why is that such a problem for some people?

For the love of God, the United States annually graduates more doctors and nurses than any other country in the world and most of them went through school with the help of government funded loans. The offer has been on the table for years for a graduating MD to work for three years in a government clinic and cancel out all his school loans, up to $200,000 in many cases, and rarely does anyone bother. They all see the new Beemer and the split-level colonial in the suburbs and head for the money. Damn the Hypocratic Oath, I want my 250K per year and a Mercedes!"

So before too many more ignorant loud-mouths rally against health care, just picture yourselves in northern Maine and 75 miles from the nearest doctor, and the only work in the county is a logging outfit that can't afford to offer medical insurance. It'd be a different story then, right? Picketing the White House to demand more health care.

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Posted By: BillsCatz @ 10/22/2008 9:12:31 PM

This has never been a doubt in my mind. Despite a lot no-nothings screeching about how people "could have insurance if they worked harder to get it" -- completely untrue, by the way -- there are places in the US where basic health care is not avaiable. This may be hard to believe for city folks who live within twenty miles of major hospitals, but it's reality. Even in Northern new England health care is limited; there aren't enough people to financially justify a hospital, so for some it's a two hour ride to an emergency room. Two hours with apendicitis or a broken arm or a migraine... Then there are parts of our country where folks can't afford the trip anyhow and the annual state-sponsored health fair is their only exposure to real medical treatment. Ther is no town doctor -- he lives 70 miles away in another county and it takes two months to see him.

I can see no reason for all this wailing about universal health care -- other than the people making the remarks are either ill-informed or just plain envious at the idea of somebody getting care for less than they themselves have to pay. Check out Michael Moores movie "Sicko" before you flap your jaws too hard. Several of the civilized, democratic countries have universal health care -- France, Sweden, Canada and England, for example -- and nothing bad has happened as a result. Every citizen gets an equal shot at good medical care. Why is that such a problem for some people?

For the love of God, the United States annually graduates more doctors and nurses than any other country in the world and most of them went through school with the help of government funded loans. The offer has been on the table for years for a graduating MD to work for three years in a government clinic and cancel out all his school loans, up to $200,000 in many cases, and rarely does anyone bother. They all see the new Beemer and the split-level colonial in the suburbs and head for the money. Damn the Hypocratic Oath, I want my 250K per year and a Mercedes!"

So before too many more ignorant loud-mouths rally against health care, just picture yourselves in northern Maine and 75 miles from the nearest doctor, and the only work in the county is a logging outfit that can't afford to offer medical insurance. It'd be a different story then, right? Picketing the White House to demand more health care.
Posted By: Emilli @ 08/21/2008 8:52:45 AM

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2595691/Dentists-pulling-out-more-teeth-instead-of-fixing-them.html
Well, from all the news coming out of the Uk, may want to stay away from government health care in the United States. We need better insurance rates not government control over our health that's for sure. I would suggest staying far away from this Universal Health that the Democratic keep talking about.
Posted By: PREDICTIONET @ 08/16/2008 7:59:15 AM

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