Doctors volunteer to help Americans cut off from health care by the cost | 60 Minutes
In a Nutshell
Remote Area Medical (RAM), a volunteer-run charity founded by adventurer Stan Brock, hosts free pop-up clinics across America for uninsured or underinsured patients desperate for dental, vision, and medical care they can't afford—treating over 1,200 in one frigid Knoxville weekend alone. Patients like Sandra Talent and Dave Burge, who slept in their cars for days, receive extractions, 3D-printed dentures, and glasses, restoring dignity and normalcy amid a healthcare crisis where millions skip meals or lose coverage due to high costs and policy cuts. Funded by small donations and powered by hundreds of volunteers nationwide, RAM delivers life-changing relief, with 65% seeking dental services and emotional "mirror moments" proving its profound impact.
These notes were generated by AI and may contain inaccuracies.
About one-third of Americans say they have skipped meals, borrowed money, or cut back on utilities to pay for healthcare, according to a Gallup poll released in March. The Trump administration lowered prices on more than 50 drugs but let premiums rise, even double, in the Affordable Care marketplace and made the biggest cuts ever to Medicaid. Already 3 million have lost insurance and it's estimated 10 million will in 3 years. This reminded of a 2008 story about charity Remote Area Medical (RAM), which started parachuting doctors into South American jungles but in the 1990s turned to Americans cut off from healthcare by cost. Recently returned to RAM at one of its free popup clinics. For Americans long on pain and short on hope, RAM is a ray of mercy in the darkness.
The parking lot in Knoxville, Tennessee, began to fill early in a frigid February; many drove hundreds of miles in desperation. RAM opened a clinic inside an empty exhibit hall but can take only so many patients on a weekend, so people joined the line days before. Met Sandra Talent at 5:00 a.m., who came from Huntsville, Alabama, and had been in the parking lot since 4:30 Wednesday night—two nights sleeping in her car after a 200-mile drive, all for lack of dental insurance.
If you didn't have RAM, how would you get your teeth taken care of? >> I wouldn't.
A few spaces over, Dave Burge spent the night in his truck aching for a full set of dentures. His teeth were lost due to an uninsured drunk driver running a red light at 80 mph, hitting him head-on, almost killing him—two years of rehab, three surgeries, and $140,000 later, he returned to work. At work, drilling through a basement wall, the drill hung up on rebar, came around, smacked him in the mouth, cracked his jaw, and broke his back out again. By then, thin on money, he had few choices and kept working. Employers on construction jobs assumed he lost his teeth to meth addiction; Burge's only habits are nicotine and caffeine. Wrapped in four layers against 27°.
If you didn't have Remote Area Medical, what would you do? >> No other way around. They're life changing. >> Life changing. >> Well, they hand you your life back. That's life changing. That's what teeth mean to me. I can be a normal human again.
Line stretched to 1,200 patients over Friday, Saturday, and Sunday in Knoxville. Brad Sans, former paramedic and RAM clinic coordinator:
Who are the people in the cars? >> Everybody. I mean, it's your neighbors. It's your parents. It's your friends. It's the community around you. It's everybody. And it's nationwide.
RAM sets up a clinic like this most every weekend somewhere in America—all comers, no questions asked, no insurance needed, don't even have to give real name. Met a woman at a RAM expedition grateful for help but who hates to ask.
I'm not going to judge your story. Nobody here that's working or volunteering today is going to judge any person that comes through that door. We are here to help.
About half of patients have no insurance; the rest have insurance they can't afford due to co-pays and deductibles. Many plans have no dental, vision care, or hearing care.
Chris Hall volunteered at RAM when he was 12; now CEO. This is triage area.
When you look at the patients that come through our door, 65% request dental service, 30% request eye exams and glasses, only 5% request medical care. Dental and vision are two things isolated that people do not have access to or can't afford.
Screening for blood sugar, blood pressure, breast cancer, skin cancer, and more. Depending on clinic size, RAM spends between $100,000 and half a million dollars over a weekend.
How do you pay for all of this? >> It's the generosity of the public. Over 81% of supporters are individual donors—people that write $5, $10, $20 checks every month.
Leveraged with donated clinic space, donated supplies, and volunteers—887 volunteers on this Knoxville weekend alone from 30 states, bringing medical students.
Treat these patients with dignity, with respect. Talk to them like they're human beings.
If you ever lose faith in humanity, go spend 10 minutes at a RAM clinic. You're going to see hundreds of people donating their time and large swaths of their own money/time to help their neighbors.
Remembers a guy who tried to remove a broken tooth with a screwdriver—that's the desperation.
Dentist Glenn Goldstein volunteered from New Jersey; sees patients suffering from past without healthcare and no hope for future.
I've had young people... "Well, some of these teeth can be saved." ... "I don't care. Please, I don't have any money. I don't have any way to get these fixed. So please take them out."
I got a bunch of loose tooth and gross tooth and they're just bothering me. So I'm ready to get them all out.
Heartbreaking to take all teeth out; patients ask to take all their teeth out (counts 1-16) because they know going forward they won't be able to take care of them—100%.
Relieving pain was mission of RAM's late founder, eccentric Englishman, daredevil pilot, and Amazon cowboy Stan Brock.
Stan was a magnificent leader. Magnificent man. Humble.
Met Stan Brock and RAM in 2008:
We're very happy that you're here this morning. We've got a lot of really fine volunteer doctors, dentists, eye specialists.
Stan was adventurer who walked 26 days in the Amazon for injury treatment. Started airborne medical charity with army surplus C-47 that flew on D-Day. When met, he was 72, no family, took no salary, lived in donated office, showered with garden hose. Died in 2018 in the office.
He was perhaps the most dedicated person I've ever met... Working with Stan, hard to ask for a day off when your boss hadn't had a day off in 20 years.
In 2008, Stan staging 12 clinics a year. After broadcast, $4 million in donations and thousands more volunteers; RAM grown from dozen to 90 clinics a year.
It's because of you and your story back in 2008 that brought me to almost to tears. As soon as your segment was over, I immediately went online, looked it up, and registered. I'm from Jersey.
Volunteering at RAM has become family thing: son here now, wife, daughter-in-law, daughter, other son—all been here multitude of times.
Sounds like you get as much out of this as the patients do. >> Maybe more.
Remember Sandra Talent and Dave Burge here for dentures, process that would take weeks were it not for trailer and 22-year-old engineer Connor Gibson who helped build it. Gibson uses computer design to make dentures with 3D printers—can print a set in an hour or so. Slept in trailer to keep printers running non-stop. Inspired by "mirror moment":
We say it's worth a million dollars, but truly it's priceless. When you give them that mirror, you see all that stress melt away. No matter if they're 18 or 80, we see grown men cry sitting in the chair.
Dave Burge, who wanted to be normal human again:
You're a new man. Thank you.
Mirror smiled on Sandra Talent:
Looks good. >> Happy tears. >> What does this moment mean to you? >> I don't know what I'd do. You know, the Lord would make a way, but I feel like he has made a way through RAM.
Over Knoxville weekend, RAM allowed more than 500 patients to see, 700 live without pain, restored smiles of 24. With insurance out of reach for growing millions, RAM hurries to another city to make health in America a little less remote.
You look beautiful. >> You think they look pretty? >> Yeah, you look gorgeous. >> Good. >> Seriously. >> Good. >> You look so pretty. >> Thank you for being here, honey. >> Have a great day. You too. Have a great life. >> Get some sleep.
Keep 60 Minutes in your library
Save the videos and channels worth coming back to, and find them again in one place.
