WISE, Va. – They arrived at a fairground in a deep corner of Appalachia before daybreak, hundreds of people with throbbing teeth, failing eyes, wheezing lungs. They took a number, sat in the bleachers and waited in the summer heat for their name to be called so they could receive the medical help they could not get anywhere else.
Among the visitors at the free, once-a-year medical clinic was Lisa Kantsos, whose first stop was the dental tent, a sprawl of tables and chairs where volunteer dentists and students performed cleanings, filled cavities and pulled teeth. After getting a cleaning, she made a stop at a mammography van. Last year, it was free glasses.
“It’s a blessing. It really is,” said Kantsos, a 52-year-old diabetic, “because I don’t have to worry about these things.”
Kantsos and many of the estimated 2,000 others who turned out at the Wise County Fairgrounds in late July are the health care debate’s forgotten.
In this Friday, July 21, 2017 photo, Dr. Susan OConnor, left, a volunteer dentist from Galax, Va., works on Joey Johnsons teeth at the Remote Area Medical clinic in Wise, Va. Johnson, who is paralyzed from a gun accident as a teen, comes to the clinic each year for free dental and vision care. (AP Photo/Dylan Lovan)
In this Friday, July 21, 2017 photo, a table of medical and dental supplies spans the length of the dental tent at the Remote Area Medical clinic in Wise, Va. The weekend clinic gave free medical and dental treatment to more than 2,000 low-income patients. (AP Photo/Dylan Lovan)Even with the passage of “Obamacare” in 2010, they have no insurance because they exist in a desperate in-between zone, unable to afford coverage but ineligible for Medicaid. And because they haven’t benefited from the Affordable Care Act, the debate on Capitol Hill over repealing it has been all but irrelevant to them.