Free Clinics Offer Hope For The Uninsured

For Americans With No Medical Insurance, Free Health Clinics Have Become Life Savers

(CBS)  Kimberlee Maloney has been a registered nurse all her working life, but she recently lost her job and her health insurance, too.

"It's devastating because every day you wake up and think, 'Today I hope there's nothing wrong,'" she says.

Kimberlee came to the Genessee County Free Medical Clinic in Flint, Michigan, reports CBS News correspondent Seth Doane, where the uninsured don't need to pay a penny for health care.

Doane asks truck driver Randy Ervin what his lack of medical insurance means for him today.

"That means if it wasn't for places like this here, I'd be still home sick coughing my head off," Ervin says.

For 51-year-old Dale Willis, it was bad enough to lose his job at an auto parts supplier.

Even worse, he is a diabetic.

"Scares me more losing medical insurance than losing a job," Willis says.

Doane asks him why that is.

"Well, my age-our age-cost of prescriptions," Willis says.

The clinic is staffed by more than 100 volunteer nurses and doctors like Dr. Samuel Dismond.

"What stories are you hearing here?" Doane asks.

"I'm hearing stories of a need for help," Dr. Dismond says. "A need for more than help-a reassurance that somebody cares. Somebody is there for them-somebody is willing to help."

To qualify for that help, a family of four must be earning less than $43,000. A single person, like Kimberlee, less than $21,000.

"Tell me, financially, how it's been," Doane says.

"Well, let's put it this way, I dropped 30 pounds in three months because I couldn't afford food," Kimberlee says. "I had a choice-"

"Choosing food or medicine?" Doane asks.

"Yes," Kimberlee says. "And do you pay the electric bill or do you buy food? So you pay the electric bill and then you go and buy whatever is cheapest, even if it's not the best for you."

---

Read about how Doane reported this story at Couric & Co. Blog.

---

It was her sister who thought the clinic might be the best chance to put Kimberlee's life back on track.

"My sister knew I needed help, and she said she wasn't going to leave me down there to die," Kimberlee says.

"These people don't make a lot of noise," Dr. Dismond says. "It's not like somebody picketing or demonstrating for health care. They just suffer in silence."

At the clinic in Flint, their silence is answered not just with health care but with human care, too.

[zkfccw8]

Free clinics are hard to find, especially when living in the outer reaches of Los Angeles County. I''ve been out of work, and totally depending on the County for healthcare, which stinks, and food stamps, equally stinks. I used to have insurance as I worked for them. Now, I''m scrambling looking for work to pay rent, bills, and food. It''s hard finding work here in Antelope Valley. I have to commute to the rest of the County looking for work. Gas prices makes that impossible. You wait for weeks to see a doctor for schedule visits, and for hours to see an urgent care doctor. You go through hoops in getting food stamps through the county. It''s humiliating, humbling, and I hate it, but, I have little choices.

[pattipace7]

While Americans out of work are forced to use free health clinics to survive, over 20 million illegal immigrants (and their extended families) receive the best free emergency room and maternity ward care available. Amnesty instead of deportation is a disaster waiting to happen. Here in Pennsylvania we have veterans living underneath bridges and EMPLOYED illegal immigrants rapidly multiplying in our rental properties. My school taxes have doubled because of the illegal immigrants%u2019 many, many children in our public schools.

While our troops are bravely fighting for freedom in the Middle East, at home it appears freedom is free for illegal immigrants as they invade our nation.

The Democrats advocating for amnesty are saying that citizenship for illegal immigrants will cost them each a $5,000 fee. In reality, what these politicians are saying is that the lives of the brave heroes we lost in this war on terror are each only worth $5,000.

In Pennsylvania we have veterans living underneath bridges and employed illegal immigrants living in the rental properties.

[jon2012-2009]

pattipace7: The lack of universal health care in the U.S. is a totally unrelated issue to the presence of illegal immigrants in this country. And contrary to what you may believe in ignorance of the facts, to the extent they contribute to the economy, they help us with a net positive benefit. You want to round them up, go ahead and argue for that. But the state of health care in America offers no platform for your views.

[wineberry]

I think it is good to have free health clinics for people that truely need it,(I''m talking about the legal citizens), for there are not thousands but millions that don''t have health insurance. However someone will pay for that free health service, more than likely in the form of higher taxes to the citizens of this country. Under the present administration at the White House, life for the uninsured has become a joke, for if it were not for the compassion of people to provide programs for the low income families there would be no hope. Yet this same administration if it had its way would do away with the southern border in a heartbeat. It''s been projected that by 2030 that about half the population of the US is going to be made up of Hispanics, no doubt many of them illegals. Well perhaps so, but the problems that Whites, Blacks, and all others are facing now will not go away because half the US will be Hispanic. Let them fight the terrorists, crime, disease, overcrowding, high gas and food prices, theft, drugs, etc.; it will still all be here. I still say the Hispanics better keep looking back over their shoulder, for the Muslims are coming up fast in number in this country and when the Hispanics do outnumber other races here they will have a force to reckon with - the Muslims.

[darnedsocks]

NOW THIS GOES BACK TO THE WHOLE REASON WHY PEOPLE BECOME DOCTORS IN THE FIRST PLACE...TO TRULY HELP PEOPLE WITH THEIR MEDICAL NEEDS!

[cmfitz2]

This free clinic is not government funded.We provide services to uninsured,low income Genesee Co. Mich residents who have a social security #, at no cost to them. Grants and donations from local people and volunteer help and medical personnel donations of services allow us to provide care. Do not make this an illegal forum. Thanks for the exposure. cmfitz