Northern New England PNHP Remote Summer Internship 2025

Our summer internship for medical students is our primary chapter activity. Because all three members of Vermont’s congressional delegation have sponsored or co-sponsored the Medicare for All bills in their respective chambers, and because we and our allies had already educated much of our small population about universal, publicly-funded health care for all, this project seems to us to be the best way for us to make the greatest impact we can with our limited resources.

In the summer of 2024, we had a total of 13 interns from Ohio, Kentucky, Louisiana, Oregon, North Dakota, New Jersey, Texas, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont. Thirteen more young activists are now empowered with a broader understanding of our current profit-centered chaos and are impacting fellow students and other colleagues, as well as the public.

This program relies on a small core of volunteers to run it. To ensure its sustainability, we need to recruit more volunteers—to spread the work now and provide mentoring prior to when current volunteers need to step back.

• You don’t need to be from Northern New England to volunteer!
• Click here to find out more about what kind of help we need.
• Please fill out this volunteer form if you are inspired to help!
• Click here for information about our Summer 2025 internship.
• We have recordings of many of the sessions. Please let us know if you are interested in viewing some, or if you might be able to assist in the project of making them accessible.
• We welcome your donations to this amazing program!

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NNE Internship Student Testimonials

Medical student India Claflin describes her experience as an intern with the PNHP Northern New England 2021 summer internship program.

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Other chapter activities

Over the past two years, members have been participating in discussions, submitting comments to the Green Mountain Care Board, leading discussions within the state medical society, providing testimony in the state house, writing to and/or meeting with elected officials, and writing letters to the editor regarding:

• The need to improve our current Medicare program, by creating an out-of-pocket cap for beneficiaries; adding coverage for dental, vision, and hearing; and reducing part B premiums [unrecorded video conferences with elected officials and candidates]
• Private equity encroaching on health care infrastructure in Vermont [GMCB comments on Vytalize: Keller, Malek [and followup here], Cody, and Katz Field; on Clover: Malek] 
• The fiction of “value-based care” as the antidote to our high prices in health care, and the cost of delaying real reform [Ally letter to Centers for Medicare and Medicaid; Dundas]
• Disadvantages of “Medicare Advantage” for Medicare beneficiaries
• Opposition to switching retired state employees to Medicare Advantage [Malek]
• The risks to our Medicare trust funds from the deceptive practices of Medicare Advantage programs and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid “innovations” such as “Direct Contracting Entities” and “ACO-REACH” (“Accountable Care Organizations – Realizing Equity, Access, and Community Health”)
• Sustainability challenges for our rural hospitals, and how the global hospital budgets proposed in the Medicare for All bills would address this [live comments during the public engagement process for Act 167; meeting with Dr. Hamory]
• The administrative burdens on health care providers, especially primary care clinicians, and how this would be more effectively addressed with a single-payer system accountable to the public rather than to profit. [Malek]

Many forces are working to move toward more privatized health care, increasing profits and reducing care. We are working to oppose these from three directions: 

• Protect and improve Medicare, so that we are not further away from our goal, and so Medicare for All sounds like a goal people can get behind. (We don’t want people to think we are fighting for Medicare Advantage for All.)
• Protect infrastructure that we have.
• Implement policies that will facilitate or at least be compatible with our goal.

We work with many allies in the state who are focused on access and affordability, and patients over profits, whether the ally is fully on board with a publicly-funded single payer health care system or not.

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Videos of presentations by VT-PNHP leadership

Traditional Medicare vs. Medicare Advantage, September 18, 2023, featuring Marvin Malek, M.D., M.P.H. Starts 7 min. in, 26 min. presentation followed by Q+A.

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The Privatization of Medicare, February 6, 2023, featuring Marvin Malek, M.D., M.P.H., starts at 2 min. 15 seconds in, speaks to 1:15:00; Tom Abdelnour, J.D., Legislative Coordinator for Vermont State Employees Association, starts at 1:15:40, speaks to 1:30:00, followed by Q+A for both.

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Medicare Privatization: Medicare Advantage and REACH (formerly known as Medicare Direct Contracting) April 5 featuring Betty Keller, M.D. 25 min. presentation followed by Q+A.  1 hour, 18 minutes; Bernie Sanders’ Health Aide Beth Stern is in the audience and answers some questions.

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Engaging with medical students and legislators

Medical students interested in contacting local SNaHP leaders or attending SNaHP events that are available by videoconference should reach out to PNHP National Organizer Lori Clark at lori@pnhp.org.

VT-PNHP reaches out to meet with our congressional delegation and state elected officials. If you are a VT-PNHP member, please let us know at bjkellermd@gmail.com if you would like to receive notices of when those meetings are scheduled.

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Resolution supporting a single payer, universal publicly-funded health care system, endorsed by the Vermont Medical Society on November 7, 2020

• Click here to read the resolution.
• Click here to read the press release.
• For inquiries regarding the resolution in support of a single-payer national health plan passed by the Vermont Medical Society, please contact Jane Katz Field, M.D. (jane.katz.field@gmail.com)

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Town resolution in support of Medicare for All, passed in Putney, Vt.

BE IT RESOLVED that the town of Putney hereby endorses federal legislation which will provide universal, comprehensive health coverage with zero cost sharing for all of our community residents during this crisis, such as the Health Care Emergency Guarantee Acts, and beyond, such as the Medicare-for-All Acts of 2019; and be it further

RESOLVED that the town of Putney, VT calls on Senator Sanders and Leahy and Representative Welch to work vigorously toward the immediate enactment of this, or similar legislation, thus assuring health care coverage as a basic human right for all Americans.

• Read the full resolution HERE

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Board of Directors

• President: Betty Keller, M.D., bjkellermd@gmail.com
• Vice President: Jane Katz Field, M.D., jane.katz.field@gmail.com
• Secretary: Ted Cody, M.D., tscody@vermontel.net
• At Large: Marvin Malek, M.D., M.P.H., mmalek66@gmail.com

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Media Contacts

Betty Keller, M.D.
Phone: (802) 274-8180
Email: bjkellermd@gmail.com

Dr. Betty Keller trained at the University of Vermont College of Medicine (now Larner), and completed her residency at the University of Utah Department of Family and Preventive Medicine. She continued for one year as an adjunct faculty member while receiving additional obstetrical training and developing curriculum and logistics for University of Utah health professions students training in rural underserved areas, before returning to Vermont.

Her first-hand experience with the challenges facing families trying to advocate for loved ones with mental illness to receive insurance coverage for necessary care; her experience in rural health as a provider, a patient, and a family member; and her spiritual drive for health and justice for all have led her to explore health disparities and what more needs to be done to reduce disparities, in addition to achieving a publicly-funded health care system.

She is the current president of the Vermont chapter of PNHP; serves on the Advisory Board for One Payer States; and chairs the League of Women Voters of Vermont Health Care Committee.

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Marvin Malek, M.D.
Phone: (802) 272-9271
Email: mmalek66@gmail.com

Dr. Malek received his medical training at SUNY Upstate in Syracuse, NY and his residency training at Cook County Hospital, and has spent most of his career in community medicine, providing care to underserved populations. He is the recipient of a Kellogg Foundation grant, which he used to pursue advanced training in the field of health policy at Harvard School of Public Health.

He currently practices internal medicine at Central Vermont Hospital, where he provides medical consultation and intensive care to hospitalized patients.

Frustrated by the timidity of the legislation that was enacted in Vermont in 2006, he ran for Lieutenant Governor of Vermont that year and later for State Representative, hoping to work on the health care issue.

Marvin remains active on the issue of health reform. He has testified before the legislature and given talks around the state advocating for a more humane and affordable health care system.

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Deb Richter, M.D.
Phone: (802) 224-9037
Email: drdebvt@sover.net

Dr. Richter practices in Montpelier, Vermont. She is a former President of PNHP. She has spoken extensively to both community and medical groups; is a frequent spokesperson in the print, TV, and radio media; and is active in coalition building on the need for universal access to health care.

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Jason Kelley, M.D.
Email: jason.kelley@dartmouth.edu

Dr. Jason Kelley is an internist at the White River Junction Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Vermont where he serves as chief of the hospital medicine division. He received his medical degree from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School, and did residencies at the Harlem Hospital Center/Columbia University and at the University of Vermont. He is a professor emeritus from the University of Vermont and is currently a visiting professor at Dartmouth Medical School. From 2001 through 2010 he served as vice chairman of the Department of Medicine at the University of Louisville and chief of medicine at the Louisville VA Medical Center. He joined PNHP in 1992 and served as the Vermont chapter president from 1994-1997.

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