HSPH Students Lead Health Reform Rally in Philly

 

Sybil Hyppolite a current HSPH student gets marchers fired up 

at Monday's Health Care Reform Rally in Philadelphia, PA

On Monday, November 10, a throng of marchers left from the 137th Annual Meeting of the American Public Health Association at the Philadelphia Convention Center and headed to CIGNA headquarters to promote keeping the public option in health care reform.

I had the opportunity to interview the organizers after the rally to hear how it went (it was over email). Below is our Q&A. If you'd like to view some of the rally videos, you can visit YouTube.

Q. Who organized the rally? 

A. Public Health Practitioners for Reform, a group of students at HSPH who were inspired and challenged by Marshall Ganz when he came to speak at an event here at school. We believe in health care for all and we support the public option as a first step to improving access. Key organizers included Aaron Holman, MS2 HPM, Sybill Hyppolite, MS2 SHDH, Michelle Lugalia, MS2 SHDH, Lindsay Schubiner, MS2 SHDH, Mark Brewster MS2 SHDH, and Tim Cunningham ScD SHDH, among many others. We received invaluable support from organizations such as the Health Policy Forum at HSPH, Health Care for America NOW! (HCAN), American Federation of County, State and Municipal Employees (AFCSME), and several members of the American Public Health Association (APHA).

Q. Why did you think this was important to do now, at APHA? 

A. Public health practitioners have an enormous stake in guaranteeing access to health care for as many people as possible, and we occupy a unique position as experts in the field.  It is essential that we make our voices heard at this crucial moment in the legislative process.  For the first time in 60 years, legislation around health care reform in Congress has progressed further than before. The level of cooperation between our legislators around this issue is also unprecedented. We are witnessing history in the making and we want our voices and our demands to count. As public health students, our voices have been missing from the debate and we felt we could not passively watch this moment pass by. We felt the need to step up and get involved.  We chose to organize the demonstration at the APHA Annual Meeting because of its nation-wide membership and its timing, as well as its symbolic relevance to the debate.

Q. How did the event go?   

A. It went very well!  Some of us have not been this intimately involved in organizing and so we were learning as we were planning.  We wanted to engage APHA members as much as possible, to get attention from the press, and we wanted it to be a meaningful experience for all the marchers. We met all of our expectations! We attracted two media sources, engaged respected members of APHA, had close to 100 people join us, and recruited great and diverse speakers to address the crowd. The group was energized during the event and several attendees thanked us for organizing the effort.

Q. What are you planning to do next?  

A. PHPR is determined to stay active in this issue. We are planning our next steps in light of the status of the bill and the President's desired deadline: Christmas 2009. Important aspects of the House bill, for example concerning reproductive rights, were cut from the version that passed, and even if the current bill makes it through the Senate without further cuts, it still fails to guarantee health care coverage for all.  We already know that this bill, as it stands, leaves us short of where we need to be.  Follow us on Facebook to get involved in our future activities. We want health care for all and we want it now!

Rallying for Health Care Reform

My apologies for such a late post; however, given the increasing momentum for health care reform in the news and media I feel it is still timely and appropriate. It's great to see the HSPH community getting involved with health care reform and rallying around this important cause! Below is a post from a fellow student, and first time blogger, Alana Wooley:

September 11, 2009
An estimated one thousand people came out to the Boston Commons on Labor Day for a health care reform rally hosted by Organizing for America, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), and other labor unions and health care reform advocacy groups.  Speakers included Massachusetts politicians (several of whom may be vying for the late Senator Kennedy’s vacant Senate seat), Boston politicians, labor union leaders, physicians, and community members personally affected by a lack of or inadequate health insurance coverage.

Many attended the rally bearing homemade signs iterating the urgency of health care reform.  Some signs read: “Help make America as healthy as insurance profits,” “The health of the people is the highest law of the land,” “Public option means affordable health care,”  “Health care is a human right!”  In addition, signs and speeches called for health care reform honoring the late Senator Kennedy’s cause.

Rally participants ranged in age, race/ethnicity, physical ability, and social class – chanting at times in favor of health care reform and applauding politicians who articulated their support of a public insurance option.  Representative Stephen Lynch, who supports health care reform, but does not support the public option, received loud boos from rally participants, often drowning out his speech.  Chants that circulated among rally participants included “What do we want? – “Health Reform” – “When do we want it?” – “Now!” and “Public Option! Public Option!”

In addition to showing support for health care reform, rallies such as this one also sought to visibly demonstrate the number of people who support healthcare reform, with the intention of eclipsing the famed town hall objections that have often been featured in the media.

Alana Wooley
ScM Candidate, 2010
Society, Human Development, and Health
Harvard School of Public Health
awooley@hsph.harvard.edu 

HSPH Students Attend Town Hall Meeting on Health Care Reform

On Wednesday night, a group of 15 Harvard School of Public Health students crossed the river to be among the estimated 3,000 audience members at Senator John Kerry's Town Hall meeting in Somerville, MA. The atmosphere at the town hall stayed respectful for most of evening as Senator Kerry made his case for health care reform.

In his first public appearance since Senator Kennedy's funeral on August 29th, Senator Kerry spoke of how the two shared many ideals and fought to win the same battles. However, he expressed hesitation that the public health insurance option, a signature piece of the HELP committee's bill in the Senate and Senator Kennedy's final reform push, was politically feasible. 

As a physician, I have been keenly following the debate over health care reform for many months, and I was disappointed by the defeatist tone Senator Kerry used when discussing the public option. Nonetheless, Senator Kerry expressed to the largely sympathetic crowd that he believes meaningful health care reform will be passed in 2009. 

Paul Kokorowski (MPH-CLE, '10) said, "After hearing Senator Kerry speak, I am confident that a reform bill will pass. However, I am concerned that costs may not go down or that all Americans won't be covered."

Sylvia Thompson

MPH Candidate, 2010

Global Health & Population

Harvard School of Public Health

sthompso@hsph.harvard.edu

Welcome Back!

Classes began today for Harvard students from Longwood to Cambridge. While many students, including me, are still figuring out what courses to take for the next 8-16 weeks, I sense a lot of energy and excitement brewing around campus. This is a historic moment for those of us in public health. I am reminded of this constantly by the announcements in the daily Student News about town hall meeting road trips and rallys to discuss health care reform, as well as the frequent headline stories of the Boston Globe and New York Times.

I am certain that health reform will be a topic in many of our classes (whether taken here or at the Kennedy School), and I hope that this blog can inspire and be a forum for student-led discussion.

There lots of new faces at HSPH who will likely contribute great ideas, experiences, and lessons to the classroom discussions here at school. I hope that this blog can be a forum that expands the classroom beyond Kresge and FXB and makes them available for a wider audience of people interested in public health at Harvard.

So I pose this question to you (whomever you are...)

What are you looking forward to this year (or semester) at HSPH?