Benedict College student Anthony King can't afford insurance.By: Manuel Gonzalez
About twenty percent of South Carolinians are living without health insurance
With health care being so expensive and these hard economic times squeezing the wallets of South Carolinians, people are putting their health on the bottom of thier to do lists.
Benedict college student Anthony King says he enjoys working at a local club, where he is known as "Big Mac."
Big Mac recently learned his mother was diagnosed with Type Two diabetes and wishes he could go to a doctor to get checked out, but he doesn't have any health insurance.
"When it comes to diabetical needs or any type of real health problems. I don't think the student infirmary or health center can help," says Big Mac.
But there is a low-cost alternative, increasingly low-income people who do not have health insurance are turning to the Eau Claire Cooperative nine health clinics."
Sterling Sharpe Health Center in North Columbia is part of the coopperative health centers.
On the day we visited the nurses were busy with a full waiting room outside.
"Yeah because of these economic crunch. Like I said we see a even flow based on the season and right now we are extremely busy," says Mamie Drayton a nurse at the health clinic.
The cooperatives nine clinic's in town have seen in an increase of more than three hundred and twenty-five patients this year.
Forty percent of their patients do not have health insurance.
Big Mac and others are welcome here, where the mission is to provide medical care in the spirit of the good Samaritan.
