Sat 4/12: Medical Students Rally Against Greed at BCBS IL

Students for a National Health Program
Physicians for a National Health Program
www.pnhp.org // www.facebook.com/snhp1


MEDICAL STUDENTS TO RALLY AGAINST 'PRIVATE-INSURER INJUSTICES AND GREED' OUTSIDE BLUE CROSS BLUE SHIELD ILLINOIS
Saturday, April 12, 6pm - 300 E Randolph St, Chicago

Four Years After Enactment of Affordable Care Act, Medical and Other Health Professional Students Say the Law Doesn’t go Far Enough and are Demanding ‘an Improved Medicare for All’


	WHAT:

	Medical and other health professional students, saying, “Put patients over profits,” will rally outside the Blue
	Cross Blue Shield Tower near Chicago’s Millennium Park in support of a single-payer health program. The students
	will say the U.S. should no longer rely on private health insurers – whose main goal is to maximize the bottom
	line – to finance care. They will point to the private companies’ rising co-pays and deductibles, narrowing
	networks, high executive salaries, and intrusions into the doctor-patient relationship as reasons to shift to a
	publicly financed single-payer system, “an improved Medicare for All.” They will deliver this message to Blue
	Cross Blue Shield.


	WHO:

	Medical students and other health professional students from Illinois and 12 other states – future physicians,
	physician assistants, nurses and other health care professionals – who will be in Chicago for a “Single-Payer
	Student Summit” being held at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine:
	http://www.pnhp.org/student-summit

	About 60 are expected to  participate in the rally. The summit and rally are being sponsored by Students for a
	National Health Program, part of Physicians for a National Health Program (pnhp.org). Members of allied
	single-payer groups are also expected to participate.

 	Speakers at the rally will include the following:

	James Besante, MS3, University of New Mexico School of Medicine
	Victoria Powell, MS4, Virginia Commonwealth University
	Scott Goldberg, MS2, University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine
	Keyon Mitchell, MSW, Shearer Student Fellow, Physicians for a National Health Program California and California
	Health Professional Student Alliance


	WHEN:

	6 p.m. – 7 p.m., Saturday, April 12

	Program starts at 6 p.m.

	PHOTO OPPORTUNITY at 6 p.m. Students in white lab coats and scrubs demonstrating with posters depicting the faces
	and exorbitant pay of top insurer CEOs (including the $16 million in compensation paid to Patricia Hemingway Hall,
	CEO of Health Care Service Corp., Blue Cross and Blue Shield Illinois’ parent company, in 2012), plus other
	posters and banners.


	WHERE:

	Blue Cross Blue Shield Tower, 300 E. Randolph St., Chicago.


	WHY:

	Health professional students want a future in which they can practice medicine in an environment that treats all
	patients equally, removes financial barriers to care, and eliminates private-insurance-company paperwork and
	meddling in medical decision making. The ACA, notwithstanding its modest benefits, will leave 31 million uninsured
	and many more “underinsured,” subject to financial distress in the event of serious illness.


A growing number of students are advocating for a single-payer system, whose key features are given here:
http://www.pnhp.org/facts/key_features_of_singlepayer.php

A comparison of the ACA and single-payer legislation, H.R. 676, is available here:
http://www.pnhp.org/sites/default/files/A%20Superior%20System%20-%202013.pdf

As background on student activism for single payer, see this article in the January issue of Chicago Medicine, the publication of the Chicago Medical Society:
http://www.pnhp.org/news/2014/january/advocating-for-a-single-payer-system

Many students have also been involved in lobbying their state legislatures to adopt single-payer bills.
http://www.pnhp.org/news/2014/january/med-students-lobby-for-new-yorkers-health

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