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!

APHA 2009 -- Water, Water Everywhere...

I am joined by many HSPH students, faculty, and staff at the 137th Annual Meeting of the American Public Health Association in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

There are lots of exciting social media tools being used by public health organizations and attendees at this year's annual meeting (you can follow what's happening at #apha09 on Twitter).

Additionally, a group of HSPH students who formed a group, Public Health Practioners for Reform, will be marching to CIGNA headquarters tomorrow (Monday, November 9th) at 4pm. So, if you are in Philadelphia and want to advocate for a public option you can get the details at the Organizing for American website by clicking here.

So if you can't make it, you can still find out what's being talked about. And if you're interested in getting more of a student's perspective on this year's Conference, check out my blog posts at Veritas Health or follow my Twitter feed @veritashealth.

Thoughts on Health Care Reform

As boxes and arrows and words scribbled in chalk rapidly took over the board, I was once again struck by the same uneasiness I had been feeling for a while whenever the topic of health care reform came up: will we be changing anything at all?

We were drawing a diagnostic tree in class, pinpointing potential causes behind the discrepancy in what the U.S. pays per capita and our health outcomes. Words were scrawled hastily across the board as we brainstormed – lack of fee for service, fragmented financing, lack of access. I want these words to be huge, bright, flashing neon signs in the face of U.S. citizens. But they are getting buried – buried in rhetoric, in scare tactics, in sensational statements instead of an articulation of the facts.

The fundamental misalignment of incentives at every stage of the healthcare system – specialists being paid far more than general physicians, physicians being paid for quantity instead of quality, patients not seeing the true costs of procedures and medications due to insurance coverage – is not what the health care debate seems to be about. The absurdity of inequalities in health – by socioeconomic status and by race, among other things – is not what the health care debate seems to be about. The structural, environmental, and societal factors that combine to make us unhealthy are not what the health care debate seems to be out.

Insuring everyone is important, but we must consider – what does having insurance mean? Having insurance doesn’t change the fact that some people can’t get out of their sprawling suburbs without a car. Having insurance doesn’t change the fact that some neighborhoods are incredibly unsafe. Having insurance doesn’t change the fact that some people’s nearest hospital is miles and miles away, understaffed, and underfunded.

While I am incredibly, incredibly grateful to all those who are working to change our system for the better – including so many here at our school, as well as President Obama and his administration – if the health care debate thus far is indication of what the health care bill that eventually passes will look like…I have to wonder, will we be changing anything at all?

[Disclaimer: I am not as pessimistic as all that makes me sound – I firmly believe that public health can improve things, and I do think health care reform will change some things (and that having health insurance changes some things!), just not enough things or to an adequate extent. And I’m not at all arguing against taking quick action on health care reform. Best case scenario – the voices of public health experts and others get heard, and we get a bill that, though far from perfect, actually addresses some fundamental problems and affects some real change. Some of the bills under consideration now do address at least some fundamental issues, despite the lack of focus on these issues in the debate, and for that I am very grateful! Worst case scenario (assuming a bill passes) - a bill, any bill, would serve as a starting point – if we can change something about health care, it is no longer untouchable, and hopefully iterations in the future will bring us closer to the kind of health outcomes our country should have. ]

Vinu Ilakkuvan
ScM Candidate 2010
Society, Human Development, and Health

Comments?

Protect Insurance Companies PSA from Will Ferrell

So, what is YOUR opinion?

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 

Sights of Kenya

Here are some of the pictures I took during my internship with Aga Khan Foundation Community Health Department in Mombasa, Kenya. Some pictures from Nairobi are included as well.

In addition to my work at the health department, I often visited an orphanage for children below the age of two years-- just in case you are wondering who those adorable kids are.

Enjoy!

Bolanle Bukoye
ScM Candidate, 2010
Global Health & Population
Harvard School of Public Health
bolanlebukoye@gmail.com

The Journey so Far!

A year ago I was getting ready to leave my job in the trauma center where I had spent the last seven months as a medical officer sewing up people who had sustained wounds from assault or road traffic accidents and resuscitating people who were unfortunate to be victims caught up in the crossfire between rival militant gangs or armed robbers in one of the states in the Niger Delta. I was embarking on a new phase of life. It was a relief to leave the streets of the Niger Delta for the more peaceful streets of the Federal Capital territory. It was one major reason I was leaving but the other was to change my focus and steer me away from other distractions to proceed along the path of Public Health. I had spent one year of the compulsory youth service in the Northern Part of my country and had gone on medical outreaches were I was the only health worker seeing close to two hundred patients over a two day span. This was when I began to realize that my love for surgery would take back seat to a public health pursuit.

My new job had the rather long and clumsy to explain title of Emergency Preparedness Doctor. I was to be responsible for monitoring outbreaks in the North Eastern Part of the country acting as a liaison between the local Health authorities in the different states and my organization and carrying out exploratory missions when there were cases reported (I worked for the French Section of Medecins Sans Frontieres).

When I first saw the job advertisement it had on it a caveat- Traveling 60% of the job, do not apply if not willing to travel, for me it was not a deterrent but a welcome home sign for one thing I do love is to travel! (Don't ask me where I have been, for many of the places I have traveled to are on the pages of books and my mode of transportation is my mind:)



Thus I started my trips round the North Eastern part of the country, many of the states were places I had been to when I was five for my parents took my twin and I on a trip round Nigeria and they form my early memories. But this was a whole new world for me for I now had the capacity to form more tangible memories.

My first job was as a doctor in a post measles malnutrition center, I had been employed at the end of a measles outbreak so I was sent to the field to see how a malnutrition center was being run, then I made some trips to some other states to monitor reported cases of cholera and then this year I spent most of my time working during the big meningitis outbreak. My last job before I left was to conduct a Nutritional Survey with my colleagues. All these activities took place in different states and most times I was on the road for long periods of time. It was fun to work and travel at the same time and I usually took pictures of the scenes along the way.


It was fun while it lasted and I am at the school of Public Health hoping that the journey will be even more fruitful than my past experiences. Looking forward to having a lovely time with everyone.



Olaoluwatomi Kehinde Lamikanra

MPH Candidate, 2010
Health Policy & Management
olamikan@hsph.harvard.edu