User:Angelasliu0/sandbox

Sandbox for the article: Free clinic. The words in italicized are my own, normal font is the original article. Strikethrough is the edited version I will remove from the original article, and brackets are what I am replacing the strikethrough with.

Free Clinic
A free clinic or walk in clinic is a health care facility in the United States offering services to economically disadvantaged individuals for free or at a nominal cost. The need for such a clinic arises in societies where there is no universal healthcare, and therefore a social safety net has arisen in its place. Core staff members may hold full-time paid positions, however, most of the staff a patient will encounter are volunteers drawn from the local medical community.

Edit: "Care is provided free of cost to persons who have limited incomes, no health insurance and do not qualify for Medicaid or Medicare...

''[Free clinics are non-profit facilities, funded by government or private donors, that provide primary, preventive, and additional health services to the medically underserved. Regardless of insurance coverage, all individuals can receive health services from free clinics. However, said services are intended for persons with limited incomes, no health insurance, and/or who do not qualify for Medicaid and Medicare. Also included are underinsured individuals;]''

meaning those who have only limited medical coverage (such as catastrophic care coverage, but not regular coverage), or who have insurance, but their policies include high medical deductibles that they are unable to afford. Clinics often use the term "underinsured" to describe the working poor.

History
At the turn of the 20th century, healthcare in the United States became privatized despite many efforts by President Roosevelt and others to establish national health insurance, causing the healthcare system to neglect the lower classes ''. Starting in the 1950s, there have been incremental reforms to offset healthcare market failures and to better deliver healthcare services to low-income and underserved populations, including Medicaid and Medicare. Since then, there have still been increasing inequality and issues in coverage, access, cost, and quality of healthcare in America . In the United States, free clinics are a way to address this inequality and lack of universal healthcare, and as part of a health safety net.''

....

In 2010, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) was passed, which provided a potential to eliminate the need for Free Clinics. as a reform that aimed to make healthcare insurance more accessible to low and middle class families.

''Specifically, it subsidized low-income populations’ purchase of individual coverage. It also incentivized employers to provide coverage to low-income employees, and made it mandatory for states to expand Medicaid to include non-disabled and young people with incomes that were below 138% of the federal poverty line . Studies show the ACA has been successful in redressing inequality in the access to healthcare. In 2015, there was a “4.2 percentage point increase in full-year insurance for the poor and 5.3 point increase for the near-poor” .''

However, the implementation of the ACA proved to be more challenging as some states chose not to enforce it. Additionally, the ACA does not support undocumented immigrants, which means that health care outside of the free clinic to those who are undocumented remain relatively inaccessible.

''The ACA also does not reach homeless populations. Barriers include this population's low healthcare literacy, the requirements of residency verification, the difficulty in applying for social services, their access to transportation, and the fact that many healthcare facilities do not accept Medicaid.''

Furthermore, the election of President Trump into office altered the reform that will result in an overall increase in the cost of health insurance in the long run.

''It is not yet clear if and how the Trump administration will influence healthcare reform, specifically the access to healthcare for the most vulnerable. Trump often speaks out against the ACA; some scholars worry that President Trump's 2017 executive order, which eliminated cost-sharing reductions in the ACA, will result in an overall decrease in the number of people who can access affordable healthcare, thus emphasizing the need for free clinics.''

Student-Run Clinics
Free clinics allow student volunteers to become more socially aware and culturally competent in their medical experience. Medical schools sometimes do not address social determinants of health or treatment of underserved populations, and medical students can use free clinic volunteering to learn about these issues. At free clinics, medical student volunteers learn to listen to the full history of their patients and treat them as a whole rather than a list of symptoms. Medical students balance the power dynamic between the patient and provider, acting as a patient advocate. Furthermore, students who are exposed to SRCs are more likely than their peers to continue to work with underserved populations after graduation.

''An example of a student-run free clinic that addresses the social determinants of health treatment is one in the University of Washington, called Students in the Community (SITC). This clinic is the only student-run clinic to be run out of a transitional housing facility for the homeless. This clinic model speaks to the embrace by student-run clinics of the increasingly prevalent holistic approach to healthcare -- one that considers the social determinants of health, such as housing, as shown through its housing-first model.''