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It looks like this: “I just had an 18-year-old have a full mouth extraction because she’s never had dental care,” said Beth Bortz, who runs the Virginia Center for Health Innovation. “It’s not unusual.”She said patients often want their good teeth removed, too, because they associate teeth with pain. She said health-care providers counsel them to keep them.And it looks like this: Every year, hundreds of people have every one of their teeth pulled there. Then they put their names into a denture lottery, with the hope of being picked to get a set of false teeth made for them at the next year’s event. Forty-six people were picked from a list of 700 to get dentures this year.“They pull thousands of teeth here. At the end, they’ll have buckets of teeth,” said volunteer Jennifer Lee, Virginia’s deputy secretary of health and human resources and an emergency room doctor.And, well, it looks like this: In a tent where people waited for a vision exam, McAuliffe knelt beside Martha Deel, whose only job is caring for her brain-injured son. Fifty-one years old, she looked decades older. After her exam, she said she would line up to see a doctor for “the girl stuff.”No, we're not talking Gaza, or Bangladesh, or rural India, or highland Guatemala, we're talking Virginia -- one of our country's wealthiest states full of highly-profitable defense corporations, like Northrop Gunman, whose share price just rose to $123.87/share -- just in case you were wondering. Killing people is big business in Virginia, but apparently saving the lives -- and dignity...and teeth -- of those who live in this exceptional state that likes to call itself a "Commonwealth" is just not worth the money. Virginia's Democratic governor has been -- in an effort worthy of praise -- heroically trying to expand Medicaid against the insane obstructionism of Republicans in his state's legislature, and on Friday he visited his citizens -- receiving health care in a horse barn -- as a reminder of just how great the stakes are in this fight. Gov. Terry McAuliffe renewed his pitch for expanding health care to the poor Friday by touring a field hospital set up at a county fairgrounds, where people had camped out for days for the chance to see a dentist or doctor.As some of you might be aware, Remote Area Medical was originally founded by a British philanthropist to provide health care to people in places like sub-Saharan Africa and the Amazon.McAuliffe flew to the Remote Area Medical expedition in far southwest Virginia, where the line for free dental and medical care was 1,500 long by 4 a.m. Friday, when organizers started turning people away.“That just breaks your heart,” said McAuliffe (D), standing in a horse barn that served as a makeshift doctor’s office, with bedsheets strung up between examination tables to provide a measure of privacy. Here's what the founder, Stan Brock, says inspired its creation: My vision for Remote Area Medical® developed when I suffered a personal injury while living among the Wapishana Indians in Guyana, South America. I was isolated from medical care, which was about a 26 day journey away. I witnessed the near devastation of whole tribes by what would have been simple or minor illnesses to more advanced cultures. When I left Guyana, I vowed to find a way to deliver basic medical aid to people in the world’s inaccessible regions. So, in 1985 I established the non-profit, Remote Area Medical® or as most people know us - RAM®. RAM® is the way I have kept that promise, not only to the Wapishana Indians, but to thousands around the world in similar conditions. In other words, there are Wapishanas everywhere.Apparently, Americans are Wapishanas, too. Single-payer -- independent of employment and cruel state governments -- anyone?
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Monday, July 21, 2014
Daily Kos: Military device used on Detroit protest against water shutoffs, GOP Denying Health Care in VA
How do you define Moral Bankruptcy of a Nation?
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