By Danielle Alexander, M.Sc

With Congress advancing their health reform bills and the President’s vow to improve our health care crisis, I wish I could be hopeful and encouraged. But I’m neither. Instead, I’m dismayed. And listening to my fellow classmates, I’m not alone.

A little over a month ago I stood with 50 other medical students, faculty, and community members in front of Albany Medical College to remember the 45,000 Americans who die each year because they lacked health insurance.

The vigil was called, “Treat! Don’t Trick”, because we stood to ask Congress for reform that will help us treat our future patients, not fool us with hyperbole. I was moved to be a part of the vigil because I am appalled that deaths due to lack of health insurance has more than doubled since 2003.

Ryan McIntyre explained that he wished we could meet to celebrate; however there is not much to celebrate. He is a third year medical student and President of Physicians for a National Health Program student chapter.

“Obama is quoted as saying that if he could start from scratch he would support a single payer system,” Ryan said. “However, instead of starting from there, he started from a compromised position. What if Hippocrates started with a compromised position when he outlined the Hippocratic Oath?”

“For-profit, private insurance has not worked to control costs and cover everyone, and it will not work,” Megan Ash, a first year medical student, told us. “Improved and expanded Medicare for all is the best solution.”

“Health reform is the civil rights movement of our time,” Naazia Husein announced. She is a second year medical student and Co-President of the club Student Perspectives in Advocacy. “A single payer system is not a dream,” Naazia added, “it’s a demand.”

Reverend Harlan E. Ratmeyer, a pastoral care-giver at Albany Medical Center, explained: “The elite group is in the [healthcare coverage] pool, everyone else out of the pool. From the perspective of justice, and the spiritual, economical perspective, we should all be in the pool.”

Other vigil participants spontaneously began telling their stories too. John Wax, a first year medical student talked about how his father, self-employed, only received treatment for his herniated disc because he was a Vietnam Veteran and could get health insurance through the VA.

James Kelley, a first year medical student, shared that his mother was a nurse for 10 years providing health care in a women’s shelter. But when she needed to use her health insurance, she needed to hire an attorney in order to battle insurance claim denials.

The reforms touted on Capitol Hill will not solve these problems. Not even close.

Millions of Americans will still be without health insurance, private insurance companies will continue to deny health care in order to satisfy their stock holders (yes, even if exclusion due to preexisting conditions are unlawful), rapidly increasing health care costs will not be contained and healthcare coverage will still be tied to employment. As future physicians, and from our own life experiences, my classmates and I see that these these are the very things that demand to be changed.

If President Obama wants to be the last president to take up health care reform, then he must reconsider expanding and improving Medicare to include everyone.

Danielle E. Alexander, Albany Medical College Class of 2013, belongs to the American Medical Student Association and Physicians for a National Health Program.