The TAP-IN Blog

Free Clinic Patients and Volunteers Tell Their Stories

Among the 47 million American's without health insurance, many rely on free clinics located in their communities for vital health care. Some of these clinics now provide stories about the patients they help, with some allowing the patients to testify through the Web about their experiences with the volunteer professionals who serve their needs.

In Richmond, Virginia, the Fan Free Clinic features "success stories" of patients (described with pseudonyms) whose lives have been positively transformed by the medical, social and mental health services the clinic provided them.

The Saban Free Clinic in Los Angeles also provides success stories that are clearly meant to serve multiple purposes: to encourage the uninsured to seek treatment and support; to attract funding; and to motivate volunteers to participate.

The North Carolina Association of Free Clinics Web site has published a testimonial from a couple who credit one of its clinics with saving their lives.

The Saturday Free Clinic of Columbia St. Mary's Hospital in Milwaukee is coordinated by sophomore medical students from the Medical College of Wisconsin. On their Web page they tell the story of one patient's successful outcome a the clinic and of one former volunteer student who continues to volunteer now that she has become a full-fledged physician.

Finally (at least for this post) there is the Gennesaret Free Clinic in Indianapolis, which publishes a series of stories told by its volunteers about their positive experiences working for the clinic.

Of course, we hope that all clinics will somehow tell their stories and provide the photos and videos that will expose their good work to the public and to the many potential volunteers who are needed across the country.

A Profile of the Uninsured in Minnesota

A writer for Minnpost.com did some research and focused on the artist community in the state to debunk some commonly held beliefs about who make up the ranks of the uninsured in the state. In an article titled Just who are the uninsured in Minnesota?, Casey Selix interviewed the executive director of St. Paul-based Springboard for the Arts to flesh out a profile that counters the conception that many people seem to have formed of their uninsured neighbors.

Artists are mostly self-employed, creative workers whose income levels don't allow 14 percent of them to pay for health insurance. One of the most important functions of Springboard has become health care research, finding affordable access to preventative treatments and screenings for artists who, at best, can afford to pay for policies covering only catastrophic care. In addition, Springboard is working with a local community clinic to provide vouchers to help artists pay for health care services, and sponsors periodic "health fairs" where artists can get flu shots and other preventative screenings.

Like others in the estimated 7.2 percent of Minnesotans without health insurance, artists are subject to stereotyping. The reporter's research found the following to be true about the state's uninsured, contradicting public generalizations:

• The uninsured are not slackers.
• They're not primarily people of color and immigrants.
• They're not all low-income.
• They're young, yes, but not necessarily invincible.
• MinnesotaCare and public assistance aren't sure bets.

New Book Describes State of U.S. Health Development

How important is it that community clinics be adequately staffed and that our national health care systems be reformed? Consider these statistics:

• The U.S. will spend $230 million on health care in the next hour.
• One in six Americans goes without health insurance (around 47 million people).
• According to the National Academy of Sciences, lack of health insurance results in lost economic value equal to $178 million to $356 million every day, due to the poorer health and earlier deaths of the uninsured.
• The U.S. ranks #24 among the 30 most affluent countries in life expectancy – yet spends more on health care than any other nation.

These "factoids" are among the many findings revealed in The Measure of America: American Human Development Report 2008-2009, produced by the American Human Development Project. Unlike most previous evaluative approaches, this one avoids looking solely or primarily at economic growth as the indicator of a population's status, but instead examines conditions in education, employment, health, motivation and institutional support systems.

The Measure of America, published by Columbia University Press and The Social Science Research Council, is the first time the human development approach has been applied in the United States or any other industrialized nation. The report features forewords by Nobel laureate and Harvard Professor Amartya Sen and California venture capitalist William H. Draper III.

Using official government statistics and robust peer-reviewed analysis, the American Human Development Report presents human development rankings for U.S. states, congressional districts, and ethnic groups. It reveals where America is today and sets a benchmark for monitoring progress tomorrow. Unlike the many existing measurements used to assess health, education, or income alone, the American Human Development Index (HD Index) combines these factors into one easy-to-understand measurement. This more comprehensive measure allows for a better understanding of the opportunities open to different groups of Americans.

The book covers many aspects of the American health care situation, most of which impact or are reflected in the uninsured population. Here are more of the factoids listed on the book's Web site:

• A baby born in Washington, D.C. is almost two-and-a-half times more likely to die before age one than a baby born in Vermont. African American babies are more than twice as likely to die before age one than either white or Latino babies.
• Changes in behavior and the physical and social environment can help avoid about 70 percent of premature deaths.
• Insured adults under sixty-five are 50 percent more likely to have had cancer screenings than the uninsured; early detection saves lives and dramatically lowers treatment costs.
• More than one million Americans are living with HIV.
• One American dies every 90 seconds from obesity-related health problems.
• African American children are two-and-a-half times more likely to be hospitalized for asthma than white children – and five times more likely to die of asthma.
• One in seventeen Americans (about 6 percent of the population) suffers from severe mental illness.
• More than half of all personal bankruptcies in the U.S. are related to an inability to pay for illness or injury.

One Out of 3 Uninsured Have Chronic Illness

A study published in the Aug. 5 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine has found that one-third of working-age, uninsured Americans suffers from a chronic illness and isn't getting the medical care they need. As reported in the U.S. News and World Report,

"This is something that is very true in my clinical experience," said Dr. Andrew Wilper, instructor in medicine at the University of Washington in Seattle. "The uninsured can't get in to see the doctor, they miss medications, their blood pressure is out of control and, really, you see devastating consequences." Wilper was a fellow in general internal medicine at Harvard Medical School while conducting the study.

Experts involved with the study predict that this situation is leading to more disabled people and more people dying early, with more seriously ill people being admitted to hospitals for long-term care, and with most of those gaining admittance though emergency rooms. Free clinics can be key players in providing treatment for the chronically ill. As the study also found out:

About 26 percent of uninsured people reported no standard site of care, versus only 6.2 percent of those who had insurance. More than 22 percent of uninsured individuals reported no visits to a health professional in the past year compared to 6.2 percent of insured people, and 7.1 percent of uninsured people with a chronic condition reported that the emergency room was their standard site of medical care, versus 1.1 percent of those carrying insurance.