‘Tis the season for articles about charities doing great work for those in need. This is not one of them. The charity I want to discuss does great work, but I want to write about how it could increase its impact if its work was required viewing by all Americans. The charity is Remote Area Medical (RAM); founded by the late, British-born philanthropist and adventurer, Stan Brock.

The first time I heard of RAM was in a 2008 interview with Stan Brock on the 60 Minutes television newsmagazine. Remote Area Medical and its thousands of medical and other professional volunteers, provides free medical, dental, and vision care to people who attend their free “pop-up” medical clinics. Stan Brock started the charity in 1985 to help people in third world countries get needed health care. But on that 2008, 60 minutes program, Stan was being interviewed about RAM clinics in Tennessee, USA.

According to a report in USA Today (2018), the United States is one of the wealthiest countries in the world in terms of gross national income (GNI) and gross domestic product (GDP)—ranked #11 and #2, respectively. America is not a third world country and it’s not remote, but somehow needs the free health care services offered by RAM. How RAM got to America is a story of unaffordable private and public (Medicare and Medicaid) health insurance. A significant number of Americans who receive RAM health care services, have or have access to health insurance but cannot afford the premiums and/or out-of-pocket costs the plans require. And many others do not know how to apply for low-cost or free health care.

Nothing says “failing private health care system” like the buckets of pulled teeth noticeable at any RAM event, or the thousands of people that line up the night before the clinics open in their area, to receive preventative health care. Which leads me to this: what if all Americans had to attend a RAM clinic once per year in exchange for tax-free health insurance premiums (employer group health insurance) and other government-subsidized health care benefits? It’s easy to love your private health insurance, as CNN.com likes to remind Medicare For All supporters. It’s hard to look at buckets of extracted teeth, made necessary because most private medical plans don’t provide preventative dental care.

It’s clear that gofundme.com and other nightmare health care costs stories aren’t enough to rattle the conscience of many “satisfied” private health care consumers; maybe it’s time to disgust Americans into wanting a better system than is available in the jungles of Guyana. But if people insist that a so-called government “take over” of our health care system will make us all RAM patients, we can remind them that the private, for-profit health care sector is what made RAM necessary. And one more thing, RAM operates on very little money. Its primary source of funds comes from individuals, not corporate donations. This small nonprofit is picking up the slack for failing corporate health plans by providing health care to workers who can’t afford their employer’s health plan. Visualize that.

Tags: Remote Area Medical, health care , Medicare For All, Stan Brock