Health for All Matters – March 2021

Health for All Matters
Welcome to the inaugural Health for All Matters, a blog series from Doctors for America’s Health for All Committee. This regular communication will serve as a summary of recent happenings, a connection between the Health for All Committee and DFA members, and a call for action around our universal health care principles:
·         Universality: Everybody IN and Nobody OUT
·         Affordability: Less spending on healthcare, more spending on health
·         Improving Population Health: Investing in communities
·         Health Equity: Better health for everyone
·         Adaptability: Responsive to evolving healthcare needs.
We hope that through our regular posts in this DFA blog spot,” you can engage with us in thought and action. If you know of others interested in our work, please share this link with them.

Recent Happenings

In late February, we held the Health for All summit to engage the larger DFA membership in our Health for All work. Twenty-five physicians and medical students joined a Zoom call, which focused on communications, relationship building, and rapid issue response strategy.

From the summit, three specific areas of Health for All advocacy emerged. These areas can be further defined to the local, state, and federal level:

  • Local: Affordable Care Act enrollment for individuals
  • State: Medicaid expansion in states that have not yet done so
  • Federal: Public option, and pathways to universal health care

With these defined advocacy priorities, we believe every DFA member can support this work in ways that fit their community and capacity for advocacy.

We will be holding regular summits for members to come together and share advocacy successes. Make sure you open DFA’s The Pulse newsletter, and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram.

Calls to Action

ACA Enrollment

Medicaid Expansion

  • We are looking for DFA members who are working to expand Medicaid in their states. While each state is different, we are building a subcommittee focused on best practices to expand Medicaid. If you are interested in joining, please email Jim Scott and Kate Kelley to get connected.

Public option

A public option is a realistic avenue to achieving universal health care, and is supported by the Biden administration.

  • We are looking for DFA members who would like to brainstorm on how doctors can advocate for the public option, and what we can due to ensure our principles are part of the conversation
  • Contact Jim and Kate if you would like to be involved.

Additional resources

The Health for All Policy Subcommittee created a strong white paper further defining our principles. We encourage you to read the draft, as we hope that it will provide additional information for advocacy efforts.

DFA will be hosting a quarterly book club, with the first session coming in April to discuss Medicare for All by Abdul El-Sayed and Micah Johnson. Details coming soon—we hope you can join us!

Interested in supporting the work of DFA’s Health for All committee? Please consider making a tax-deductible donation.

We appreciate all you do in furthering universal health care.

In solidarity,

Jim, Kate, and the Health for All Committee

Health for All