Free Health Clinics – Wisconsin

At these clinics, income no object, By David Wahlberg, August 29, 2010, Wisconsin State Journal: “They assembled in a parking lot on a hot afternoon: diabetics, men with toothaches and chest pain, a woman with torn cartilage, workers whose low wages or job losses left them uninsured. Mary Lyons waited for the free clinic to open so she could refill her nine medications. A diabetic with heart disease and a persistent cough, she works nights cleaning meat processing machines, making enough to get by but not enough to buy insurance, she said. She relies on the clinic for medical care. ‘I don’t know what I’d do without it,’ said Lyons, 61. Free clinics have become a prominent safety net in rural Wisconsin, especially in the southwest part of the state, where clinics have opened in the past four years in Boscobel, Dodgeville and Richland Center. Another, in Prairie du Sac, has been around for more than a decade. Volunteer doctors at the clinics care for the uninsured without charge and offer drugs at deep discounts. The need for free care around the state and the country could drop once the new federal health care reform law fully kicks in by 2014, some say. But Robin Transo, who opened Boscobel’s free clinic in the walk-out basement of a hearing clinic run by her husband, isn’t so sure…”