Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP) advocates for universal, comprehensive single-payer national health insurance, and collaborates with others to fight racism and advance social justice.
PNHP believes that high-quality health care is a right of all people and should be provided equitably as a public service rather than bought and sold as a commodity.
PNHP’s mission is therefore to educate physicians, other health workers, and the general public on the need for a comprehensive, high-quality, publicly-funded health care program, equitably accessible to all residents of the United States.
Equitable access requires, in the view of PNHP, the removal of financial and other barriers to care currently faced by the uninsured, minority populations, documented and undocumented immigrants, and poor and working people of all backgrounds.
PNHP recognizes that a color-blind health care financing scheme alone will not fully address structural racism in medical care. We therefore advocate large-scale investments in hospitals and clinics in underserved communities, and a sharp and immediate increase in the training of minority health professionals—forms of medical reparations.
PNHP views the campaign for health care reform as part of the broader movement for social justice in the United States and globally, including efforts to protect the environment and workers’ safety; oppose militarism, war and xenophobia; and end inequality for communities that have been and are marginalized in health care, including inequalities based on economics, race, gender, sexuality, and disability.
PNHP opposes for-profit, corporate control of the health care system, and market-based health care policies that prioritize investors’ profits over health needs.
PNHP believes that a national health program should be democratically controlled, publicly administered, and funded by progressive taxes.
PNHP strives to restore advocacy for patients’ health as the primary mission of physicians.
PNHP is an independent and non-partisan professional organization. Its work is supported by members’ dues and contributions, and by grants from progressive foundations; it accepts no funding from pharmaceutical companies or other for-profit entities. PNHP organizes physicians, medical students, other health workers, and the public in support of this program, and advances health policy discourse in the U.S. through conferences, lectures, research, articles, and other methods.
PNHP Board of Directors Statements
Statement on mifepristone: “As Physicians for a National Health Program, we believe health care is a human right. This includes coverage of comprehensive reproductive health care, including abortion, contraception, pregnancy, and infertility care. We are deeply disappointed by the recent ruling attempting to revoke the FDA’s approval of mifepristone, a key component of the most effective regimen for medication abortion. By attempting to revoke this approval, access to mifepristone will be severely limited across the country. This ruling dismantles the doctor/patient relationship and threatens the freedom of access to proven effective and safe medical care. We stand with our colleagues advocating for equitable access to abortion care in speaking against this ruling and remain committed to fighting for equitable access to reproductive health care for all people living in the United States.” (approved April 13, 2023)
Statement on reproductiveÂ
Statement on diversity: “Physi