From the email:

It is with great sadness that Remote Area Medical announces the passing of our Founder and President, Stan Brock. Mr. Brock passed away today in Knoxville, Tennessee at the age of 82. Since he began RAM in 1985, Mr. Brock has been a tireless advocate for those in need, and through his leadership, RAM has provided free care to more than 740,000 individuals.

Without Mr. Brock, RAM would not have been able to prevent pain and alleviate suffering for so many people. While Mr. Brock’s death is a great loss to the organization, RAM will continue championing his legacy and caring for those in need. Mr. Brock built a strong organization led by a dedicated 12-member Board of Directors, 34 staff members, and tens of thousands of volunteers and donors. Together, they will continue to fulfill the mission set by Mr. Brock so many years ago in the jungle of Guyana.

I met Stan for the first time at a Cato Institute conference some years ago, and I was struck by not only the quality of the organization itself, but by the effervescent attitude that Brock brought to providing high quality care, free of charge, to the nation’s poorest and most at-risk individuals. He was a force of nature who was not shy about offering help in a crisis.

But while his personality was larger than life, he always struck me as a humble man intent on finding ways to serve. I join thousands of others mourning his loss but am thankful that RAM, an organization he founded and led for so long, will continue doing the good work he started.

For those seeking more information about RAM, this 60 Minutes segment from 2008 summarizes it well.

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Remote Area Medical, one of the charity clinic pioneers in the United States, will be having a free health care expedition from August 14th through the 16th in East St. Louis, IL. As always, the clinic will be open to the public, and while I haven’t heard any indication that the group will be making any historic drone deliveries at this particular event, what is certain is that there will be a lot of people seeking help — and a lot of people giving up their weekend providing it. That events like RAM’s remain necessary in a state like Illinois, which has gone whole hog for Obamacare, is its own commentary. 

But setting that aside for the moment, I think the most important takeaway from the event for all of us is ultimately this: that people should be able to help one another without the undue interference of government. Both Missouri and Illinois deserve kudos for making these sorts of clinics more available to their citizens.

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The good news? The proposal is back. To be clear, this is a reform that allows doctors to make a difference in the lives of Missourians without unnecessary interference from state bureaucracy — and would not impose a cost on the state.

Suffice to say, I am following the trajectory of this bill with great interest and will update our readers on its progress.

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Mr. Brock told me that RAM wanted to do more in Missouri, but onerous state requirements — such as requiring licensed in-state medical personnel to participate in a clinic before RAM could provide its services — had stifled his organization on several occasions. Most recently, he said, Missouri regulations prevented RAM from providing free eyeglasses to the southwest corner of the state.

Well, Missouri may be on the verge of rectifying the problem if one bill gets to a final vote. Introduced by Rep. David Sater, House Bill 1072 appears to adopt much of the same legislative language used to facilitate volunteer medical services in Tennessee, which was a pioneer of the volunteer health services law. Better still, the legislation passed through the Missouri House in March and is now close to a vote in the Senate.

Given the movement in the health insurance exchange policy field and the Senate’s earlier allowance for a grade school optometrist mandate to lapse, this session may just be a banner one for health care policy in the state of Missouri. For more information on how burdensome occupational licensing laws affect Missouri, please check out our work in the area, which you can find here, here, and here.

The post A Rare, Wonderful Opportunity To Deliver Better Health Care To Missouri’s Underserved appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The brainchild of British transplant Stan Brock, RAM started as a relief service abroad. But for many years it also has turned its services inward to help America’s neediest, providing medical care to those who otherwise would not have received it. Brock told 60 Minutes in a 2008 report (featured above) that his organization “operate[s] entirely on the generosity of the American people.” Like so many families, stretching those sometimes “little checks” is how RAM makes ends meet. In addition, thousands of highly-trained and medically-licensed volunteers have traveled the country assisting Brock’s work for decades by providing their professional services free of charge.

Yet a recurring stumbling block as RAM visits states is artificial barriers to entry – that is, state laws that prevent out-of-state volunteers from easily donating their medical expertise because of burdensome, and sometimes expensive, licensing requirements. During a phone call last week, Mr. Brock told me that RAM wanted to do more in Missouri, but onerous state requirements — such as requiring licensed in-state medical personnel to participate in a clinic before RAM could provide its services — had stifled his organization on several occasions. Most recently, he said, Missouri regulations prevented RAM from providing free eyeglasses to the southwest corner of the state.

But Missouri could make it easier for groups like RAM to help the state’s neediest if officials relax licensing rules and explicitly allow medical professionals licensed in other states to provide their services for these charitable endeavors. Tennessee has led the way on this policy front.

In 1995, Tennessee enacted the “Volunteer Health Care Services Act,” a reform of its medical licensing law which allowed relief organizations like RAM to bring out-of-state medical professionals to help Tennessee’s poor without putting professionals licensed in their home states through an arduous and unnecessary process of re-licensing. If a doctor is licensed to practice in her home state, RAM can bring that doctor to provide her services free of charge to Tennessee’s medically-underserved. It is, in short, a clear and unambiguous law that ensures the state’s neediest are served ably and safely.

The good news? The reform movement appears to be spreading, with a handful of states following Tennessee’s lead in whole or in part. Oklahoma has reformed its laws to accommodate organizations like RAM, and more recently, Connecticut and Illinois passed legislation that allows organizations like RAM greater access to its neediest citizens. Arizona currently is taking up a reform of its own laws.

Tennessee’s law is a model for the country – and a model that Missouri, one of Tennessee’s neighbors, would do well to emulate. Allowing organizations like RAM to freely enter Missouri would go a long way towards improving care to Missouri’s underserved. When burdensome licensing laws and medical regulation interfere with the delivery of skilled, safe, and desperately needed services to America’s poor, the system is in need of reform. For Missouri, relaxing licensing laws for charitable groups like RAM would be a step in the right direction.

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