Return to RAM; Ghost Train; The Mardi Gras Indians | 60 Minutes Full Episodes
In a Nutshell
Remote Area Medical (RAM) provides free pop-up clinics for uninsured Americans facing skyrocketing healthcare costs, treating 1,200 patients in Knoxville with dental, vision, and medical care amid Medicaid cuts and 10 million projected to lose insurance. California's high-speed rail project exemplifies government waste, ballooning from $33 billion to $125 billion with minimal progress, while private Brightline advances a viable Las Vegas-LA line by 2029. Mardi Gras Indians in New Orleans preserve a secretive 1800s tradition of hand-sewn suits honoring African and Native American roots through resilience, artistry, and generational handover despite gentrification and personal sacrifices.
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Parking for the free clinic fills days early. People sleep in their cars for a chance at medical care. If you didn't have Remote Area Medical (RAM), what would you do? Suffer. With millions losing insurance, desperation meets compassion.
About one-third of Americans say they have skipped meals, borrowed money, or cut back on utilities to pay for health care, per 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 Act marketplace and made the biggest cuts ever to Medicaid. Already, 3 million have lost insurance and it's estimated 10 million will in three years.
RAM started parachuting doctors into South American jungles but in the 1990s turned to Americans cut off from health care by cost. Recently returned to RAM at one of its free pop-up clinics. For Americans long on pain and short on hope, RAM is a ray of mercy.
Parking lot in Knoxville, Tennessee, began filling early in frigid February; many drove hundreds of miles. RAM opened clinic inside empty exhibit hall but could take only so many patients on a weekend, so lines formed days before.
Met Sandra Tallent at 5 a.m.: from Huntsville, Alabama, been in parking lot since 4:30 Wednesday night (two nights sleeping in car, 200-mile drive) for lack of dental insurance. If no RAM, she wouldn't get teeth taken care of.
Nearby, Dave Bird spent night in truck aching for full set of dentures. Lost teeth from uninsured drunk driver hitting him head-on at 80 mph (almost killed, two years rehab, three surgeries, $140,000); later at work, drill hit rebar, cracked jaw, broke teeth again. By then thin on money; employers assumed meth addiction (he says only nicotine and caffeine). Wrapped in four layers against 27 degrees. If no RAM? Suffer; no other way. Teeth are life-changing: "When they hand you your life back, that's life-changing. I can be a normal human again."
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