Filling the Health Care Gap (and Filling Lips!) in Appalachia

Death, Sex & Money

Slate Podcasts

Business, Health & Fitness, Society & Culture, Careers, Relationships, Sexuality

4.6 • 7.6K Ratings

🗓️ 7 May 2024

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Nurse practitioners Teresa Owens Tyson and Paula Hill-Collins have saved countless lives in rural Appalachia. They operate a mobile clinic called The Health Wagon that brings much-needed care to people who wouldn’t otherwise get it. Teresa and Paula have also been friends since they were 14 years old. They finish each other's sentences, crack jokes, and support each other through difficult times. This week, Teresa and Paula join DSM to talk about their important work, their rock-solid friendship, and their exciting new side gig where they administer beauty treatments like botox and fillers. We also hear from filmmaker Ramin Bahrani, an Academy Award-nominated filmmaker who made a documentary about healthcare in the rural south called If Dreams Were Lightning: Rural Healthcare Crisis. Death, Sex & Money is now produced by Slate! To support us and our colleagues, please sign up for our membership program, Slate Plus! Members get ad-free podcasts, bonus content on lots of Slate shows, and full access to all the articles on Slate.com. Sign up today at slate.com/dsmplus. And if you’re new to the show, welcome. We’re so glad you’re here. Find us and follow us on Instagram and you can find Anna’s newsletter at annasale.substack.com. Our new email address, where you can reach us with voice memos, pep talks, questions, critiques, is [email protected]. Podcast production by Cameron Drews. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	For a long time I've been a fan of the filmmaker Ramine Burani going back to his first feature films
0:07.7	Man pushed Kart in 2005 then Goodbye Solo in 2008, movies that prompted Roger Ebert to call
0:15.8	Ramine the new great American director. I pay attention to what
0:20.9	Rameen makes, but when I heard about a documentary he'd made about
0:24.9	the challenge of getting good health care in rural Appalachia and that the name of the
0:29.5	movie came from a John Prime lyric, I leaned in more.
0:34.0	I grew up in West Virginia and started out my journalism career there.
0:38.2	And the people in this documentary, called If Dreams Were Lightning, are familiar to me like Marty Bolan.
0:45.0	I've been a coal miner for a little over 30 years.
0:49.0	I'm a fourth generation coal miner.
0:52.0	My dad's dad,
0:53.0	and my dad, and then there's four boys.
0:55.4	I have a black lung disease
0:58.1	and what they call the rockosis is which from the cold dust
1:01.5	and the rock dust underground.
1:03.0	I mean I had health insurance up until the day, you know, I got disabled,
1:07.0	and that's cut off.
1:08.0	That's just their policy.
1:10.0	Now I've got some Medicare.
1:12.0	It pays 80%.
1:14.0	Who pays for the 20%?
1:16.0	I struggle to pay for.
	...

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