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What It’s Like To Only Have Health Care One Day A Year
By Chelsea Jack
The annual Remote Area Medical (RAM) clinic at the Wise County Fairgrounds in southwest Virginia has become a sensational representation of the health disparities in America that have built up over the past two decades. Each year, health and policy journalists try to capture the spirit of the event by detailing the desperate patients waiting in fairground horse rings or sleeping out in pickup-truck beds to receive needed medical care — and their grim descriptions aren’t overblown. RAM offers a gut-wrenching sight of what rural poverty and inadequate health coverage still look like in many parts of America. The 17th annual Wise County RAM clinic took place this past July, and on opening day, the clinic took in its daily maximum of 1,600 patients in need of its free medical, dental, and vision health-care services.
As a medical anthropologist, I have attended and followed media coverage of the Wise County clinic since 2012, when the Supreme Court upheld parts of the Affordable Care Act. My interest was heightened once the Virginia General Assembly defeated Medicaid expansion shortly thereafter, a legislative decision that’s been upheld in the years since — and has cost my home state billions in federal funds.
