Some Personal News

From the Doctors for America (DFA) website:

Doctors for America mobilizes doctors and medical students to be leaders in putting patients over politics on the pressing issues of the day to improve the health of our patients, communities, and nation.

We believe:

• Every person in America has a fundamental right to equitable, high-quality, and affordable health care.
• Everyone should have the opportunity to lead a healthy life.
• Every part of society should value and promote healthy families and communities.
• Doctors should take a leadership role in improving health care and ending health disparities.

...Doctors for America members focus on all of the ways our patients access, pay for, and receive their medical care by advocating for universal health coverage, affordability, quality, and equity. We work broadly at the national and state levels pushing for comprehensive health system reform, expansion of health insurance coverage, and improvements to health care delivery so that it better meets our patients’ needs. Our members focus on particular parts of the American health system that most impact our patients’ ability to maintain or regain their health, such as in our advocacy for prescription drug affordability and in the fight for the elimination of inequities and health disparities.

I'm honored to announce that in spite of (or perhaps due to) not having a medical degree myself, I've been asked to join the Doctors for America Board of Directors.

In this capacity I'll be primarily working with DFA to help achieve their healthcare for all initiative:

HEALTH FOR ALL: HEALING AMERICA

Our nation is sick, our patients are suffering, and physicians are trapped.

From well visits to cancer treatments, the cost of health is too high for American families and American society. The growing corporatization of healthcare has forced our patients to choose between going without care or going into debt to get the services they need, all while prices rise and life expectancy falls.

Physicians in turn are compelled to navigate corporate bureaucracies on top of clinical work, often getting trapped in a web of red tape that prioritizes profits over health. With our hands tied, we become complicit in the rationing of care, causing physician burnout and skyrocketing rates of depression and suicide.

The bottom line is: healthcare is not working. It’s not working for patients, it’s not working for providers, and it’s not working for the public. Doctors for America believes we need a system that provides better care, to everyone, at lower costs; allows doctors to spend time with their patients instead of compromising with corporate greed; and gives both doctors and patients the certainty that everyone will be cared for, regardless of their circumstances. We’re fighting to create a healthcare system where everyone can get the care they need, where they live, when they need it, and at a price we can all afford.

...Politicians and policymakers often lose sight of our values, but Doctors for America believes that the time-honored American ideals of equality, liberty, and justice provided by a government of the people, by the people, and for the people lead us to core health care principles that must guide healthcare system reform:

• UNIVERSALITY: Everybody IN and Nobody OUT
• AFFORDABILITY: Less spending on healthcare, more spending on health
• IMPROVING POPULATION HEALTH: Investing in communities
• HEALTH EQUITY: Better health for everyone
• ADAPTABILITY: Responsive to evolving healthcare needs

Doctors for America knows affordable healthcare for all is a medical imperative, an economic imperative, and a moral imperative. While America’s healthcare mess will not be fixed in one election cycle, we will persist in advocating for the proposals that focus on building a better healthcare system based on our guiding principles. Whether that be through Medicare, Medicaid, or the best parts of the ACA, Doctors for America commits to fight for the plans that provide the most equitable universal healthcare at the lowest costs to our patients and our country. Our patients trust us to heal them, and at this moment in history, healing our patients requires healing America.