Medical Students Organized for Public Good & Single Payer

The American Medical Students Association (AMSA) is the independent and largest organization (68,000+ members) of medical students in the U.S. It has a presence on all American medical schools and is an explicit, and larger, alternative to the AMA's student organization. For more than half a century, AMSA has represented the voice of physicians-in-training in their efforts to best serve the public.

In recent years, this has included mobilizing students in advocating for quality, affordable health care for all. AMSA works through state and national coalitions to improve existing public programs and to advocate for a public national health insurance program. They explicitely support single payer and HR-676.

This being 2008 it has included a video contest in which they challenged people to make a video about single payer and/or HR 676, and winners are now up on YouTube and posted below. Check it out and show AMSA some love.

What is Single Payer:

Lil Piggy:

Health Care:

HR676 HR 676 Video Contest Movie:

Here are some more AMSA videos on YouTube.

It also sheds some light on what American medical students think are the important issues for themselves, their chosen profession, and for the public:

2007-2008 Strategic Priorities:
Quality, Affordable Health Care for All
Global Health Equity
Enriching Medicine Through Diversity
Professional Integrity, Development and Student Well-Being

Other Issues:
Career Development
Community and Public Health
Complementary and Alternative Medicine
Creative Expression
Disability and Medical Students
Diversity in Medicine
Domestic Violence
Global Environment and Health
Global Health
Health and Human Rights
Health Disparities, Eliminating
Health Equity
Health Policy
HIV/AIDS
Humanistic Medicine
International Health
Legislative Action
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Health
Medical Education
Medical Malpractice
Medical Student Debt
Medical Student Well-Being
Minority Health
National Resident Matching Program
NRMP Second Match
Open Access to the Scientific Literature
PharmFree Initiative
Physician Workforce Composition
Primary Care
Public Health Education
Resident Work Hours
Revitalizing Professionalism
Universal Health Care
Women's Health

and also additional resources...

Action Committees:
Community & Environmental Health
Culture of Medicine
Education
Gender and Sexuality
Global
Grassroots Leadership
Humanistic Medicine
Policy
Race, Ethnicity and Culture in Health
Student Life

Interest Groups:
Business of Medicine
Child & Adolescent Health
Death & Dying
Direct Action
Geriatrics
Mental Health
Military Medicine
Naturopathic Medicine
Neurology
Osteopathic Medicine
Primary Care
Preventive Medicine
Surgery

•  tips & recs because...

  the kids are alright

  by DrSteveB on Fri May 30, 2008 at 06:35:06 AM PDT

  •  can't resist

    Man this one looks old:

    by DrSteveB on Fri May 30, 2008 at 06:46:06 AM PDT

    •  and to those who think that...

      ...leaving the private for profit insurance companies in place is somehow part of the solution, we say:

      by DrSteveB on Fri May 30, 2008 at 06:48:19 AM PDT

  •  Would you consider adding a link

    to the Daily Kos Health Care Google Group to your diaries?

    by SarahLee on Fri May 30, 2008 at 06:56:58 AM PDT

    •  if i can remember...

      even more important, I should put in HR-676 endorsement related links.

      I am fowarding my diaries to the group now.

      by DrSteveB on Fri May 30, 2008 at 07:14:56 AM PDT

  •  Thanks, from a proud AMSA member

    on the whole, I think my classmates have their priorities straight.

    by emidesu on Fri May 30, 2008 at 08:46:41 PM PDT

  •  These young people will become the Real Majority

    in a few short years.

    A Boomer Boomlet is arriving.

    An entire generation with values that scare the crap out of the older, whiter conservative minority that has been running the show since Reagan appeared on the national political scene.

    These are the peers of my children's generation (about 18 to 28 years old).

    I speak with young people in this age group on a daily basis, and can report that every one of them not only supports universal, single-payer healthcare, they don't understand why it is not here now.

    I hope it arrives sooner, rather than later.

    by Angie in WA State on Fri May 30, 2008 at 09:48:56 PM PDT

•  I am glad the med students are behind this

  It is going to take a concerted effort on the part of consumers, physicians and the government to get past the healtcare industry money and finally implement a system that is fair for all. In my opinion the only way for a just system is non-profit single payer. Most of the current plans on the table are at best temporary solutions.

  by zenmasterjack on Fri May 30, 2008 at 06:41:30 AM PDT

•  Thank you for posting this..

  I love that there's organized support from medical students for single-payer health care. It gives me hope that a single-payer system may be something we may actually be able to achieve.

  by Compostings on Fri May 30, 2008 at 06:45:05 AM PDT

•  Hooray!

  This is important. Maybe if we can push from enough different directions we can make single payor happen. With medical students/doctors, individuals, and even business working together to counter the influence of big pharma and insurance companies.

  by small town wisc on Fri May 30, 2008 at 06:45:08 AM PDT

•  National Physician's Alliance (NPA)

  Thank you for great post. AMSA is a wonderful home for progressive medical students interested in true reform of health care.  In 2005, the National Physician's Alliance http://npalliance.org/ was created for progressive physicians who also seek true reform and the return of professionalism, integrity, and like in health care.  It's a logical home for students who were members of AMSA, and hopefully, with time, an important counterweight to large physician organizations like the AMA (American Medical Association), who are shamelessly self-serving and inextricably linked with perpetuating our corporatized health care delivery system.

  by symptomORdisease on Fri May 30, 2008 at 06:54:32 AM PDT

  •  and of course PNHP

    NPA is broader in the issues it addresses, but of course for single payer there is Physicians for a National Health Program: http://www.pnhp.org/

    AMA membership is down to around 25% of american physicians.

    Most docs belong to their specialty organization, the largest of which ACP (internists) has endorsed single payer!

    by DrSteveB on Fri May 30, 2008 at 07:05:24 AM PDT

•  Go to YouTube and rate those videos up

  and then share the links on the social networking sites like Digg, Reddit, del.icio.us, and reddit.

  by SarahLee on Fri May 30, 2008 at 06:54:49 AM PDT

•  I'll Second That !

  I am attending my daughter's med school graduation tomorrow.  She and many of her peers have already been outspoken on this very issue.

  by AllanTBG on Fri May 30, 2008 at 07:07:56 AM PDT

  •  congrats to your daughter & your family! n/t

    by DrSteveB on Fri May 30, 2008 at 07:11:40 AM PDT

•  Get 'em while they're young!

  ...and get 'em while their idealism and energy is still strong, and maybe the majority will carry it with them, in spite of student loans and the siren call of subspecialties with high-paying procedures.
   I'm pleased to see our young 'uns picking up the torch and carrying it forward.  Theirs is the future.

  by drchelo on Fri May 30, 2008 at 07:08:59 AM PDT

  •  get mentally sidetracked during

    residency. Partially get professional socialization. Partly just get distracted and sidetracked by the overwhelming hours, duties, life, etc.

    But yeah... get 'em while they are young.

    Rise of AMSA has been a majoar part of the decline of AMA.

    by DrSteveB on Fri May 30, 2008 at 07:13:49 AM PDT

•  I am so traumatized....

  Every time I see the word "single payer" the brain interprets it as "Single Prayer" and I envision healthcare as it would be in the Handmaid's Tale. Thocracies taking care of health. Scary.

  Anyway...Good on the Med Students!

  Thanks Dr. Steve!

  By the way, I am back to working with disturbed and mentally ill youth.

  Single payer including mental health treatment seems like a far-off dream. I ALWAYS wonder how things would be for MOST of the people who have to see me if there was SUPPORT for people built into "the system".

  The overt hostility to providing mental health care just exacerbates the problems people have.

  by xxdr zombiexx on Fri May 30, 2008 at 07:32:09 AM PDT

•  Excellent!

  As I prepare to go play footsie with the insurance company in a couple of weeks, I dream of the day when health care is something that just happens.

  by mataliandy on Fri May 30, 2008 at 07:40:18 AM PDT

•  United Protection Pool

  UPP with Single Payer!

  by bthespoon on Fri May 30, 2008 at 07:41:25 AM PDT

•  As for quality care

  I hope the students will support the good work of the Semmelweis Society, which has been exposing the tactics used by hospitals to silence whistleblowing doctors.

  by Deep Harm on Fri May 30, 2008 at 08:12:43 AM PDT

•  Hi, Dr. Steve,

  Maybe you should let those Med students know about the medicaid rules changes I have been so annoyingly blogging. The next stop is the house. Also, the prez is threatening a veto.

  If the moratorium does not take effect, then the new rules will cut subsidies to teaching hospitals, limiting opportunities for graduate medical education in the future.

  I am currently working on making folks aware of the impact of the rule targetting case management. My state has used it as an excuse to severely cut back on case mangement services for behavioral health, requiring pre-auths and a max of 6 hours per month per client for up to three months.  For clients in crisis trying to negotiate an extremely fragmented behavioral health system, this could severely curtail their access. It means that if I have a client who is detoxing, suicidal and in the middle of psychotic break, I can only spend 6 hours trying to get him into the right service. Also, transportation is no longer allowable, so I have to explain to him where he catches the bus and how to make several transfers just to make his appointment. In the past, we simply accompanied them. We have almost no public transport. It will never work.

  by TheFatLadySings on Fri May 30, 2008 at 10:18:31 AM PDT

•  Americans and Physicians support CHANGE

  Physician support for national health insurance
  Health care: Change it or tear it down?

  The latter doesn't say much for satisfaction with the European systems. We can still work on developing one that works for us.

  by Ginny in CO on Fri May 30, 2008 at 10:49:07 AM PDT

•  also, I love to see grown-up docs here

  gives me hope...

  by emidesu on Fri May 30, 2008 at 08:54:28 PM PDT