Stupid law hampers medical charity

Not sure if any of you know about Stan Brock and Remote Area Medical (RAM), but they travel around the country, set up clinics for the weekend (on fairgrounds, college gyms, etc), and give free medical care for people that need it. It used to be a charity that operated in the third world, but since the uninsured and destitute here are in the same position as the third world, the organization is now devoted to serving this country. Hundreds of doctors, nurses, dentists, and ophthalmologists come to volunteer.

Recently, a RAM clinic came to an area not far from me. My coworkers told me about it, and a few us decided to volunteer. (Since we aren't medical workers, we worked the front area where people got numbers and waited their turn). The clinic served over 3000 people over its weekend stay at the fair ground, but could have served a lot more, if not for a BS law:

Licensed Medical workers, in 48 states, are not allowed to provide charity work if they are from another state, even if only for a weekend. Up until 2004, Tennessee was the ONLY state that allowed workers licensed in another state to cross over to provide charity work, which is why the RAM headquarters is in Tennessee. It is easier (there are less hoops to jump through), for a doctor to arrange a charity in Guatemala, than it is for him/her to go across to another state and provide charity.

So while it is an embarrassment that this organization, which is supposed to help people in the amazon, Haiti, etc has just as much demand here, it's an equal embarrassment that some bull shite lobby Doctor lobby group is scared of licensed doctors providing charity in a state they are not licensed in. We had to turn away over 175 people because of the shortage of volunteers. If not for this frickhead law, the clinic could have been twice as big.

By the way, I have really lost trust in medicaid after volunteering this thing. Most people who came had medicaid, and 95% of them were there for dental and vision, because medicaid does not cover it. When you put the government in charge of something, cost, not care, becomes the number one worry.