A prime example of why access to quality healthcare needs to be expanded is an ambitious effort to hold an enormous, free medical event in Chicago. The proposed event, sponsored by Remote Area Medical (R.A.M.), can move ahead now that Governor Pat Quinn has signed a law making Illinois the second state to allow healthcare professionals licensed in other states to volunteer their services without obtaining official authorization. This change to Illinois’ Good Samaritan laws, which applies to out-of-state physicians providing charity care at free clinics, will directly help the 1.6 million Illinois residents who lack healthcare insurance.
Knoxville, TN-based R.A.M. brings free health, dental and vision care to geographically isolated areas around the world. Last year, the organization broadened its scope to include large U.S. cities by holding a clinic in Los Angeles where more than 6,000 people received treatment. Now, a group of Chicago physicians want to have a similar event in Chicago. “Any time you can take a speed bump out, take away borders from healthcare, it helps,” said Dr. Ken Nelson, medical director at the Community Nurse Adult Clinic in LaGrange, IL. “Not everybody is going to get insurance.” One in six of Illinoisians under the age of 65 is uninsured. Of those, 80 percent are in working families and 25 percent are children.
“The greatest impediment to what R.A.M. does, except here in Tennessee where they had the good sense to change the law back in 1995, is that for some extraordinary reason, a doctor, dentist - even nurses who are licensed to the same standards - are not allowed to cross state lines to provide free care for people in another state,” said Stan Brock, R.A.M.’s founder. Ending these restrictions leads to “a quantum leap in volunteerism in this country.”
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Economic indicators show that the recession is over. This is the opinion of Rick Mattoon, a senior economist and advisor in the economic research department of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago and a lecturer at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. Rick’s primary research focuses on issues facing the Midwest regional economy.
A study has found that people living in Chicago’s inner-ring suburbs - towns like Oak Park, Evanston, Berwyn and Oak Lawn - have 
for a plush post-operative stay until you’re ready to head home.
To receive free treatment, patients must present proof that they have lost their jobs, including a federal or state unemployment determination letter and an unemployment check stub. They will be required to sign a form stating that they have lost their jobs and health benefits.