Stan Brock’s Legacy Lives On: Celebrating the Heroes of Remote Area Medical

Wendell Potter and Stan Brock outside of Stan’s office in 2016.

So much of what we write about in HEALTH CARE un-covered is about the unrelenting greediness of the big corporations – Big Insurance in particular – that control the U.S. health care system. It can wear you down and make you cynical to know how selfish and self-focused the men and women are who call the shots at those giants, how willing they are to engage in unethical and illegal activities to make a few more bucks at the expense of American families.

We’re taking a break from exposing that greed and corruption today to instead express our gratitude for the many among us who live their lives so differently, who care far more about helping people get the care they need and can afford than making shareholders a little richer.

I also want to take this opportunity to thank you for subscribing to this newsletter and for supporting it financially as a paid subscriber if you have the means to do that. Those of you who do enable us to make our journalism available to everyone without a paywall. Many of our subscribers are young staffers on Capitol Hill and journalists who are paid far less than the folks in C-suites where enough is never enough. So thanks.

I also want to give a shout out to the people at Remote Area Medical, both staff and volunteers, who make sure that thousands of Americans who don’t have health insurance – or who do but can’t afford their deductibles – can get the medical, dental and vision care they otherwise couldn’t afford. 

If you know my story, you know that a chance visit to a Remote Area Medical popup clinic in a small Appalachian town near where I grew up changed my life. I was fortunate enough to get to know RAM’s founder, Stan Brock, who was a saint in my book. In his younger years, Stan was a cowboy in South America who got “discovered” and would go on to have somewhat of a Hollywood career as co-host of Mutual of Omaha’s “Wild Kingdom” in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. In 1985, Stan founded RAM to fly doctors from the U.S. to some of the most remote places on earth, including the villages in Guyana where he had worked at the Dadanawa Ranch.  Within a few years, though, RAM started getting pleas for popup clinics from cities and towns in this country. Because of the increasing unfairness and unaffordability of the American health care system, most of RAM’s “expeditions” today are to communities in the United States. 

Stan, who passed away in 2018, was such a selfless and humble man he accepted no salary and slept on a mattress in his office at RAM headquarters in Knoxville, Tennessee. So thank you Stan, for your friendship and all you did for so many, and thank you, RAM, for keeping his legacy and work alive.

Read more about Stan and a wonderful documentary about him here.