Eager To Hear Obama’s Health Care Talk

President Barack Obama’s health care town-hall meeting in Bristol today is particularly poignant given last weekend’s 10th annual Remote Area Medical clinic in Wise, Va.

The president will speak to about 90 Kroger employees today and answer their questions. Obama also has agreed to meet with and field questions from this newspaper’s editorial board.

We want to know what many Americans want to know. What would a public insurance option look like? Who will really pay for it? How can we cut costs but preserve quality?

We hope the president knows about RAM, founder Stan Brock and the good work the organization has done in the region for a decade.

Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine and First Lady Anne Holton, who was raised in Big Stone Gap, Va., traveled to the Wise County Fairgrounds on Saturday to support the hundreds of volunteers who make this massive medical outreach possible. Kaine, and former Gov. Mark Warner, now a U.S. senator, are well aware of the needs RAM fills – a yawning chasm of need for people who have no health insurance, or who have basic coverage but no vision or dental coverage.

We are glad to have advocates in high places because we have been appalled at the incorrect information repeated about the region and the backward stereotypes that roll off people’s tongues. RAM primarily meets vision and dental needs. The patients are not exclusively from the coalfields – or from Wise, W.Va., as one national talk show wrongly pinpointed. Patients come from the coalfields, the broader region and other states to get eye exams, new glasses, teeth cleaning, extractions and other care.

The University of Virginia sends approximately 50 dental students from Charlottesville each year to treat thousands of people without dental coverage. For many years, the success of the event was counted in the thousands of teeth pulled.

Too often Americans, regardless of region, see dental care as cosmetic and only seek treatment once there is pain or other problems. Regular dental care is too often seen as a perk, an add-on for medical insurance. But dental plaque contributes to heart disease. And infection at the gumline can spread throughout the body.

Lions Club members bring RVs to the RAM event where patients can receive hearing and vision tests and receive new eyeglasses. Their vision efforts are a Lions International core principle.

But every year the need far outstrips the demand. No matter the efforts of hundreds of volunteers, there are always people turned away. This is the core problem our country must address to reform health care.

We look forward to hearing President Obama address these issues, and those from Kroger employees, later today.