Information for Medically Uninsured

There are 46 million Americans who have little or no access to health care, and the number is growing at a rate of more than one million people per year. The medically uninsured are scattered around the United States in every city, town, and village. If you look around, it's not difficult to find them. They are our neighbors. They are the people building the roads, caring for the elderly, making your morning latté.

Their lack of basic health care is not just a problem for them, but for all of us. No community can be truly healthy if a significant portion of the population is excluded from basic health care services. In the absence of a state or national health policy that includes health care for everyone, concerned citizens need to find other ways to provide the medically underserved with the health care services they need. This is where Volunteers in Medicine Clinic of the Cascades is making a difference. Each year we provide care to thousands of uninsured families in Deschutes County and inspire other organizations to partner with us in reaching out to the underserved.

Read a Profile of Oregon’s Uninsured, 2006, a report from the Office for Oregon Health Policy and Research.

Learn more at the following websites:

Go to Cover the Uninsured--research, statistics and legislation about healthcare and the uninsured nationally and by state. A project of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation http://covertheuninsured.org/

Go to The National Coalition on Healthcare--a non-profit alliance, including 70 organizations employing or representing about 150 million Americans, working to improve America's health care. http://www.nchc.org/

Go to Kaiser Family Foundation--a non-profit, private operating foundation focusing on the major health care issues facing the U.S. http://www.kff.org/