On a Thursday afternoon, the waiting room at the Winston-Salem Community Care Center is crowded. Howell suffers from ruptured disks in his back, making it difficult for him to walk. He’s on a waiting list for surgery, but doesn’t have health insurance. His mother Bess said that’s a burden on the entire family.”           

“He just couldn’t afford private insurance because it is so high. It’s been hard. I draw Social Security not a whole lot but I try to help him out with food by cooking and taking it to him and help him out there,” said Wilson.

In a corner of the clinic’s waiting room, a petite woman wearing a black hat is sitting, tediously rubbing her hands together, hoping that the clinic can fill two new prescriptions. 64 year-old Vernetta Brown suffers from diabetes and high blood pressure. She thought when she retired in 2009, she would have health insurance.  But earlier this year all that changed. Her premiums increased to $400 a month, more than she could afford. Vernetta fights back tears.

“In the last two weeks I have gotten seven prescriptions. I didn’t have the money. I came here and they filled four and I had to get the other one filled on my own,” said Brown.

Physicians at The Community Care Center on New Walkertown Road provide free healthcare and dental services to more than 4,000 uninsured residents in Forsyth, Davie and Stokes Counties. They also see more than 20,000 patient visits each year. Jim Robinson, Executive Director at the clinic said some of the patients they are seeing are ones they have never seen before.

“These are educated people. We have people coming through with doctorates and masters who have lost their jobs,” said Robinson.

Christopher Gray has a Bachelor of Science in Sociology. He’s unemployed, has no health insurance and struggles to manage his sarcoidosis, an auto-immune disease he’s had for years.

“While I was going to school at UNCG fulltime, I had mandatory insurance there but it didn’t take care of a lot of pre-existing conditions. It kind of messed me up because they couldn’t give me the medicines and stuff that I need or the treatment
that I need,” said Gray.

The Winston-Salem Community Care Center is the largest free clinic in North Carolina. It relies on government grants, as well as community and private donations to help sustain its $1.2 million operating budget. The clinic treats patients who make less than 200 percent of the federal poverty level, a little more than $22,000 for a family of four.

Nearly 80 percent of the clinics patients are un-insured minorities.

Currently, the center receives 4.5 million dollars in medication assistance programs from pharmaceutical companies.  Under provisions in the Affordable Healthcare
Act, in 2014 many free clinic patients will fall under Medicaid coverage. Executive
Director Jim Robinson.

“One big question mark is what are the pharmaceutical companies going to do once the healthcare reform starts because they have all sorts of new obligations to give low cost medicines? Are they going to continue the medical assistance programs? Are the volunteers going to continue to volunteer, “ said Robinson.

Patients Gwenda and Eddie Holden of Winston-Salem have been coming to the community care clinic for the past ten years.  Both struggle with high blood pressure. And now Gwenda has been diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis.  She works full-time in retail.

 “There is out of pocket and then a certain amount that you have to meet before they pay 80 percent and then you have to pay 20 percent and if you are making minimum wage it’s impossible, said Gwenda Holden.

“If it is so good how come the Congressmen and President don’t use it? Why don’t they give us the same health plan they got. That’s what we need, is a health plan like that,” said Eddie Holden.

No matter what our nation’s healthcare reform ends up looking like, Robinson believes free clinics like this one will always be a part of the picture.

“We expect the clinic to be here because there are going to be too many gaps and there are not enough medical providers,” said Robinson.

Another change, in 2014 the AHCA will require all medical facilities and private practices to have an electronic information exchange system. Robinson said there are currently no federal and state grants to offset the expense of purchasing the hardware for the system.

Thursday evening, WFDD will host a community conversation on the Affordable Healthcare Act. It’ll be in Greensboro at the Odeon Theatre at the Greensboro Coliseum beginning at 7 p.m.