PNHP

A doctor's view: escaping the maelstrom

A doctor's view: escaping the maelstrom

By Samuel Metz
The Oregonian
Inside the Stump
November 03, 2009

Smoking kills. So does the health insurance industry.

In the 20th century our tobacco industry, threatened by associations between its product and a lung cancer epidemic, diverted public discussion to a multitude of highly charged and largely irrelevant issues. It succeeded so well that even now, 50 years later, it still freely markets its dangerous products with only minor packaging concessions.

In the 21st century our health insurance industry, with its product similarly wreaking havoc on public health, diverts debate away from health care to a variety of powerfully contentious (and distracting) issues. And with similar success — the health insurance industry still rides a crest of prosperity.

What’s the difference? Tobacco only affected the 40% of the population that smoked when the cigarette-cancer association began in the 1950s and the 20% of us who still do. The health insurance industry, on the other hand, affects every one of us. Its monopoly of health care financing extracts $500 annually from every citizen for its own administrative costs (not entirely devoted to lobbying and profit — let’s give the industry some credit), causes 45,000 annual deaths from inadequate access to health care (that’s as many as die in automobile accidents), and precipitates most bankruptcies in the U.S. The money spent by our health insurance industry on administration could extend essential health care to every American. But we don’t discuss that, do we?

Our health insurance industry succeeds as well in this century as the tobacco industry did in the last. Witness the congressional “reforms” — all variants on a theme: Make every citizen buy our insurance. And if our price is too high, make our government buy it for them. All hail this great victory for free enterprise. But what about our health?

American spending on health care outstrips every other nation on earth, yet we lead in not one significant measure of public health. Can it be that our doctors, nurses and hospitals are that bad? Or is that we pay for them through private insurance? Our health insurance industry would have us believe our problem stems from spending too little on their profitable insurance, not spending too much.

The most brutal evidence of the insurance industry’s success is the intensity with which all of us debate perennial unsolvable social challenges — the role of government in private lives, how America’s free enterprise system makes us special, whether tax dollars should fund abortion, whether people who work should provide free services to those who don’t, how illegal immigrants sap our country’s strength, the evil of socialist programs in foreign countries, the insidious threat of death panels, and the inherent inefficiency of any government to run anything. In short, the health insurance industry successfully diverts our attention from the root problem — that our method of financing health care through for-profit private insurance is driving our families and government into financial ruin.

So here we are, fighting not with the insurance industry but with each other: healthy against sick, insured against uninsured, libertarians against liberals, employed against jobless. Fear runs amok. Medicare recipients fear reduced benefits. Employers fear compulsory medical entitlements. Unions fear for their negotiated benefits. And everyone fears skyrocketing policy costs and decreasing access to physicians. We are paralyzed with terror.

Meanwhile, health insurance executives dab their collective brows, having successfully diverted us from realizing that their industry created and sustains our dilemma.

Can we escape this maelstrom?

Yes. With the health insurance industry spending $1.4 million daily on distractions, it takes grit to stay on target. But we must. We must demand our elected officials address the only three questions that matter: “What have you done to provide essential health care to all regardless of ability to pay, employment status or medical condition? What have you done to reduce costs? What have you done to improve our health? Everything else is irrelevant.

Can we stop the health insurance industry from killing Americans in this century faster than we stopped the tobacco industry in the last? Let’s hope we don’t have to wait another 50 years to find out.

Samuel Metz is a Portland physician.

http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2009/11/post_26.html

Lack of health insurance played a role in thousands of child deaths, researchers say

By Shari Roan
Los Angeles Times Blog
October 29, 2009

An analysis of 23 million hospital records from 37 states shows that a lack of health insurance likely played a role in the deaths of nearly 17,000 U.S. children over a 17-year period.

Researchers at Johns Hopkins Children’s Center examined records from 1988 to 2005. They compared the risk of death in hospitalized children who were covered by health insurance with those who did not, and found that uninsured kids were 60% more likely to die, regardless of their medical condition. This does not mean that the children received less aggressive care at the hospital but that they were probably in poorer health before the arrived, researchers said. Insurance status did not affect how long a child spent in the hospital, according to the study.

The study did not count children who died outside the hospital or after leaving the hospital, which means that deaths among uninsured children are probably even higher. The report will be published Friday in the Journal of Public Health.

“Can we say with absolute certainty that 17,000 children would have been saved if they had health insurance? Of course not,” a co-author of the study report, David Chang, said in a news release. “The point here is that a substantial number of children may be saved by health coverage. From a scientific perspective, we are confident in our findings that thousands of children likely did die because they lacked insurance or because of factors directly related to lack of insurance.”

As the healthcare reform debate reaches a critical stage in Washington, the study is a reminder of the human cost of healthcare inequality. About 7 million American children are uninsured.

“In a country as wealthy as ours, the need to provide health insurance to the millions of children who lack it is a moral, not an economic issue,” Dr. Peter Pronovost, a co-author of the study, said in a news release.

CBO on premiums and cost sharing of the House bill

Letter from CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf

Congressional Budget Office
November 2, 2009

This letter responds to questions about the subsidies that enrollees would receive for premiums and cost sharing and the amounts that they would have to pay, on average, if they purchased a relatively low cost plan in the new insurance exchanges to be established under H.R. 3962, the Affordable Health Care for America Act, as introduced in the House of Representatives on October 29, 2009.

The enclosed table focuses on enrollees who purchase a “reference” plan (the premiums for which equal the average of the three lowest-cost “basic” plans, as defined in the bill), because federal subsidies would be tied to that average. Such a plan would have an actuarial value of 70 percent, which represents the average share of costs for covered benefits that would be paid by the plan.

Although premiums under H.R. 3962 would vary by geographic area to reflect differences in average spending for health care and would also vary by age, the table shows the approximate national average for that lower-cost reference plan — about $5,300 for single policies and about $15,000 for family policies in 2016. Enrollees could purchase a more expensive plan or more extensive coverage for an additional, unsubsidized premium — and CBO anticipates that many enrollees would do that, so the average premiums actually paid in the exchanges would be higher (although average cost-sharing amounts could be lower than those shown in the table).

Estimate for “Reference Plan” in 2016 — Average of 3 Lowest-Cost Basic Plans:
Family Policy:
70% – Actuarial value
$15,000 – Average premium
$5,500 – Average cost sharing

One example – a family of four at a higher income level:

400-450% – Income relative to the federal poverty level
no cap – Premium cap as a share of income
$102,100 – Middle of income range
$15,000 – Enrollee premium in reference plan
0% – Premium subsidy (share of premium)
none – Average cost sharing subsidy
$5,500 – Average net cost sharing
$20,500 – Enrollee premium + average cost sharing
20% – Premium + cost sharing as a percent of income

http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/106xx/doc10691/hr3962SubsidiesRangelLtr.pdf

Comment:

By Don McCanne, MD

Of the many flaws in the very expensive and highly inefficient model of health care reform that Congress has selected, one of the more important is the financial impact that it will have on middle- and upper-middle income individuals and families. Let’s look at the example of a family of four with a very good income: $102,100.

The premium ($15,000) and average cost sharing ($5,500) that that family would have to pay would leave them with a net income of $81,600. That is not bad, but it certainly falls short of the $100,000 plus income that no doubt the family believes they should have.

Also that family would likely want coverage beyond the average of the three lowest-cost basic plans. They would want coverage greater than an actuarial value of 70 percent, especially since employer-sponsored coverage now provides an average actuarial value of 80 percent. They would also want more protection should their out-of-pocket medical expenses exceed the $5,500 average net cost sharing. Even with caps on cost sharing, the family would still be responsible for non-benefit products and services and for often-unavoidable out-of-network health care. Take those costs out of the $81,600 balance and that one-hundred-thousand-dollar-income family is going to be very unhappy with this reform legislation.

Do you think that they know about this? Do you think that maybe we should tell them?

A doctor’s view: escaping the maelstrom

By Samuel Metz
The Oregonian
Inside the Stump
November 03, 2009

Smoking kills. So does the health insurance industry.

In the 20th century our tobacco industry, threatened by associations between its product and a lung cancer epidemic, diverted public discussion to a multitude of highly charged and largely irrelevant issues. It succeeded so well that even now, 50 years later, it still freely markets its dangerous products with only minor packaging concessions.

In the 21st century our health insurance industry, with its product similarly wreaking havoc on public health, diverts debate away from health care to a variety of powerfully contentious (and distracting) issues. And with similar success — the health insurance industry still rides a crest of prosperity.

What’s the difference? Tobacco only affected the 40% of the population that smoked when the cigarette-cancer association began in the 1950s and the 20% of us who still do. The health insurance industry, on the other hand, affects every one of us. Its monopoly of health care financing extracts $500 annually from every citizen for its own administrative costs (not entirely devoted to lobbying and profit — let’s give the industry some credit), causes 45,000 annual deaths from inadequate access to health care (that’s as many as die in automobile accidents), and precipitates most bankruptcies in the U.S. The money spent by our health insurance industry on administration could extend essential health care to every American. But we don’t discuss that, do we?

Our health insurance industry succeeds as well in this century as the tobacco industry did in the last. Witness the congressional “reforms” — all variants on a theme: Make every citizen buy our insurance. And if our price is too high, make our government buy it for them. All hail this great victory for free enterprise. But what about our health?

American spending on health care outstrips every other nation on earth, yet we lead in not one significant measure of public health. Can it be that our doctors, nurses and hospitals are that bad? Or is that we pay for them through private insurance? Our health insurance industry would have us believe our problem stems from spending too little on their profitable insurance, not spending too much.

The most brutal evidence of the insurance industry’s success is the intensity with which all of us debate perennial unsolvable social challenges — the role of government in private lives, how America’s free enterprise system makes us special, whether tax dollars should fund abortion, whether people who work should provide free services to those who don’t, how illegal immigrants sap our country’s strength, the evil of socialist programs in foreign countries, the insidious threat of death panels, and the inherent inefficiency of any government to run anything. In short, the health insurance industry successfully diverts our attention from the root problem — that our method of financing health care through for-profit private insurance is driving our families and government into financial ruin.

So here we are, fighting not with the insurance industry but with each other: healthy against sick, insured against uninsured, libertarians against liberals, employed against jobless. Fear runs amok. Medicare recipients fear reduced benefits. Employers fear compulsory medical entitlements. Unions fear for their negotiated benefits. And everyone fears skyrocketing policy costs and decreasing access to physicians. We are paralyzed with terror.

Meanwhile, health insurance executives dab their collective brows, having successfully diverted us from realizing that their industry created and sustains our dilemma.

Can we escape this maelstrom?

Yes. With the health insurance industry spending $1.4 million daily on distractions, it takes grit to stay on target. But we must. We must demand our elected officials address the only three questions that matter: “What have you done to provide essential health care to all regardless of ability to pay, employment status or medical condition? What have you done to reduce costs? What have you done to improve our health? Everything else is irrelevant.

Can we stop the health insurance industry from killing Americans in this century faster than we stopped the tobacco industry in the last? Let’s hope we don’t have to wait another 50 years to find out.

Samuel Metz is a Portland physician.

http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2009/11/post_26.html

Hawaii Information

Contact Information

Email us for information on local activists

Media Contacts

Stephen Kemble, M.D.Stephen B. Kemble, M.D.
stephenbkemble@gmail.com

Dr. Steve Kemble attended medical school at the John A. Burns School of Medicine when it was a 2-year school, and completed medical school at Harvard. He trained in both internal medicine and psychiatry. He is a psychiatrist in private practice and also teaches psychiatric aspects of general medical care to internal medicine residents. He is an Assistant Clinical Professor of both Medicine and Psychiatry at the University of Hawaii School of Medicine. He is a past president of both the Hawaii Psychiatric Medical Association and the Hawaii Medical Association. Dr. Kemble has a longstanding interest in health care reform, and he has been appointed to the Hawaii Health Authority, charged with overall health planning for the State of Hawaii and with designing a universal health care system covering everyone in the State. He is also a longstanding member of PNHP and serves as a PNHP board adviser.

Leslie Hartley Gise, M.D.
(808) 878-3314
leslieg@maui.net

Dr. Gise is a Clinical Professor, Department of Psychiatry, John A Burns School of Medicine, University of Hawai’i, She is the contact person for the PNHP Hawaii State Chapter.

Maine Information

Contact Information

Maine AllCare
Website: http://www.maineallcare.org/

Email us for information on local activists

State Organizations Endorsing HR676

  • Woolwich, Maine Democratic Committee

Local Unions Endorsing HR676

  • Local 2327, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), Augusta, ME
  • Greater Bangor Area Central Labor Council, Bangor, ME
  • Southern Maine Labor Council, AFL-CIO
  • Local 327, LIUNA
  • Central Maine Labor Council
  • Maine Building & Construction Trades Council
  • Western Maine Central Labor Council AFL-CIO, Lewiston, ME

New Hampshire Information

Contact Information

Convenor: Donald Kollisch M.D.
Email:  Donald.O.Kollisch@dartmouth.edu

Northern New England PNHP Remote Summer Internship 2026

Our summer internship for medical students is a joint project of the Granite State and Vermont chapters of PNHP. Our recruitment team expects to have a fantastic pool of applicants from across the country for 2026—and some exciting new features still under development:

  • Click here for information about our summer internship.
  • We welcome your donations to this amazing program!  

NNE Internship Student Testimonials

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

Presentation: Hospital mergers and acquisitions

Lucy Hodder, Esq., Professor of Health Law at the University of New Hampshire School of Law, speaks about how hospital mergers and acquisitions impact health care, and the community at large. Originally recorded Jan. 17, 2024.

New Hampshire Medical Society resolution

In March of 2022, the New Hampshire Medical Society passed a resolution in support of a “simplified public payer system.”

See the text of the resolution below, and view a slide set on “New Hampshire Medical Society Member Attitudes about Medicare for All Support and Advocacy” that also includes the text of the resolution.

Granite State PNHP By-Laws

The Granite State PNHP by-laws were adopted February 21, 2008 and amended September 27, 2017. To access a PDF version of the by-laws, click here.

State Legislation

Slideshows

Chapter Meeting minutes (2025)

Chapter Meeting minutes (older)

Local Unions Endorsing Single Payer

  • New Hampshire State AFL-CIO
  • Local 2320, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), Manchester, NH

Vermont Information

Northern New England PNHP Summer Internship 2026

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 have 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 with limited resources.

We have found that a virtual internship allows both interns and guest speakers from a much wider geographic range to participate, so we have two tracks:

  1. Ever looking for new ways to improve the remote internship, some exciting new features are still under development. This includes using the flipped classroom method for more of our basic history and policy material, while maintaining real-time discussions with guest speakers whenever possible.
  2. Last year a medical school in New Jersey partnered with us for two weeks, which included in-person participation for their students, and we expect that partnership to expand.

Click here for information about our summer internship.

We welcome your donations to this unique program!  

We also need volunteers to help with outreach to health professions educational programs and selecting among applicants. If you are interested in volunteering:

  • You don’t need to be from Northern New England to volunteer!   
  • You could check in this year, with no responsibility, and think about whether you would like to volunteer next year.
  • 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!
  • The most inspiring job: Interviewing these young doctors-to-be.

NNE Internship Student Testimonials

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

Other chapter activities

In the coming year, we are focusing on collaborating with medical students at the Larner College of Medicine at the University of Vermont.

Over the past three 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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)

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

Board of Directors

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.

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.

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.

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.

Information on Act 48 (H.202, not single payer, but “to get us as close to a single pipeline as federal law would allow”)

Report from Dr. William Hsiao

Local Unions Endorsing a National Health Program

  • Local 2326, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), Essex Junction, VT
  • Washington-Orange-Lamoille Labor Council, AFL-CIO, Montpelier, VT
  • Vermont State Labor Council AFL-CIO, Montpelier, VT, September 2006, State Convention
  • Champlain Valley Labor Council, Burlington, VT

Massachusetts

Contact Information

Alan Meyers, M.D., M.P.H.
afmeyers@bu.edu

Allied Organizations

Mass-Care
Website: masscare.org
Email: info@masscare.org

Media Contacts

Adam Gaffney, M.D.
info@pnhp.org

Dr. Adam Gaffney is the immediate past president of Physicians for a National Health Program, chair of the Massachusetts chapter of PNHP, and a co-chair of the Working Group on Single-Payer Program Design, which developed the “Physicians’ Proposal for Single-Payer Health Care Reform,” recently published in the American Journal of Public Health. Dr. Gaffney is a prolific writer and blogger on health policy and also frequently appears on radio.

Dr. Gaffney is a pulmonary specialist at Cambridge Health Alliance / Harvard Medical School. He received his medical degree from the New York University School of Medicine and completed residency training at Columbia University Medical Center. He recently completed a clinical and research fellowship in pulmonary and critical care medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Mardge Cohen M.D.
(312) 925-5660
mardge.cohen@gmail.com

Dr. Mardge Cohen is a practicing physician at Boston Health Care for the Homeless; Medical Director, Women Equity in AIDS Care and Treatment-Rwanda (WE-ACTx); and Founder of the Women and Children HIV Program at Cook County Hospital, Chicago. She has been advocating for people living with HIV, especially women and children, for 30 years. In 2015, Dr. Cohen was awarded the inaugural Pearl Birnbaum Hurwitz Humanism in Healthcare Award by the Arnold P. Gold Foundation, presented annually to a woman who exemplifies humanism and has advanced, through her scholarship, advocacy, leadership or work, the well-being of vulnerable or underserved populations in the health care arena.

Gordon Schiff, M.D.
(617) 732-4814
gschiff@partners.org

Gordon Schiff is currently Associate Director of the Center for Patient Safety Research and Practice at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. He was Professor of Medicine at Rush University and senior attending physician at Cook County Hospital where he worked for more than 30 years as Director of Clinical Quality Research and Improvement for the Department of Medicine, and during the 1990’s director Cook County’s large General Medical Clinic for nearly a decade. His was PI and Director of AHRQ-funded Rush-Cook County Developmental Center for Research in Patient Safety (DCERPS, Diagnosis Errors and Evaluation Research (DEER) Project, whose activities and recommendations are summarized in a chapter in the AHRQ Advances in Patient Safety monograph (on AHRQ website). He is Clinical Director of the recently awarded TOP-MED (Tools for Optimizing Prescribing, Monitoring and Education) CERT (Center for Education and Research in Therapeutics) based at the UIC College of Pharmacy.

Dr Schiff has published numerous patient safety and medication prescribing improving articles in Annals of Int Med, JAMA, Arch Intern Med, Medical Care, Am J Health System Pharm. He is editor of Getting Results: Reliably Communicating and Acting on Critical Test Results published by Joint Commission Resources in 2006, and author of the section on Diagnostic Error in the forthcoming WHO monograph Current Issues in Patient Safety: A Global Perspective published the WHO World Alliance for Patient Safety. He is a member of the editorial Boards of Medical Care, Journal of Public Health Policy, and the Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Safety in Healthcare. He is recipient of the 2005 Institute of Medicine Chicago (IOMC) patient safety leader of the year award, the Institute for Safe Medical Practices (ISMP) 2006 Lifetime Achievement award, and in 2006 was selected by Modern Healthcare as one of the top “30 people likely to shape health care in the years and decades ahead.”

Dr. Schiff is a founding member and past president of Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP), author of the PNHP JAMA paper on quality health care reform, and is guest editor the October 2008 special issue of Medical Care devoted to the topic of health insurance in the U.S.

Local Unions Endorsing National Single-Payer Legislation

  • UAW Local 2322, Holyoke, MA
  • IBEW Local 2222, Boston, MA
  • Local 2321, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), North Andover, MA
  • Local 2322, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), Middleboro, MA
  • Local 2324, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), Springfield, MA
  • Local 2325, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), Northborough, MA
  • Massachusetts State CAP Council, United Auto Workers (UAW)
  • Local 2313, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), Hanover, MA
  • Massachusetts Nurses Association

Rhode Island Information

Contact Information

Website: www.singlepayerri.org
E-mail: pnhp.ri@gmail.com

Media contact

J. Mark Ryan, MD, FACP, pnhp.ri@gmail.com – Dr. Ryan is an internist in Providence, RI. He works for University Medicine Foundation providing primary care and is a Clinical Assistant Professor of Medicine at Brown University Alpert Medical School. His current hospital affiliations: Rhode Island Hospital and Miriam Hospital. He is a graduate of Harvard College and Brown University Medical School. He is current President of the Rhode Island Chapter of PNHP.

Connecticut Information

Contact Information

Email us for information on local activists

Media Contacts

Marilyn Vaché, MD
marilyn.vache@gmail.com

Erica Heiman, MD, MS
erica (dot) heiman (at) gmail (dot) com

Erica Heiman is a general Internist and current fellow in Addiction Medicine at Yale University. Previously she was an Assistant Professor at Emory School of Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia, where she was based at the great Grady Memorial Hospital. She has been involved in PNHP since medical school.

Dr. Heiman got her M.D. from UCSF and M.S. from UC Berkeley, via the UCB-UCSF Joint Medical Program. She completed her internship and residency in Internal Medicine-Primary Care at UC Davis in Sacramento.

Local Unions Endorsing Single Payer

  • Western Connecticut Central Labor Council, Waterbury, CT
  • Connecticut AFL-CIO, June 2006