Media

Henry L. Abrons, MD, MPH

Board advisor for Physicians for a National Health Program, had a long career as a teacher, researcher, and physician providing care to underserved patients and communities in New York, Chicago, Appalachia, and California. He can talk about how a single-payer health care system like Medicare for All would improve patient care, reduce physician burnout and lower costs.

Abrons: “For the U.S. to truly become a land of equal opportunity when it comes to health care, we have to eliminate disparities based on economics, race, ethnicity, and geography.”

Mobile phone: 510-332-9445 or email: habrons@gmail.com

Dr. Ana Malinow is a primary care pediatrician in San Francisco. She is a current member of the American Academy of Pediatrics and past president of Physicians for a National Health Program. She has spent decades working with immigrant, refugee and other underserved populations. She can speak about how Medicare for All, a publicly funded, privately delivered healthcare system, will improve patient care and bring us closer to the goal of social justice.

Malinow: “The COVID-19 pandemic has shined a light on every fault line of our broken healthcare system. The problems of a tiered, racially separate, unaffordable, low-performing healthcare system were with us long before the pandemic. The pandemic has given us a chance to take action. Let us not be judged by history as having squandered a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make once-in-a-lifetime change. Medicare for All will be an incremental, albeit important step towards social justice, one that will have lasting and positive effects. Medicare for All could not have prevented the COVID-19 pandemic, but it will go a long way to help every person living in the US today.”

Email: anamalinow@gmail.com  or phone: 713-417-6381

Dr. James G. Kahn, MD, MPH, professor emeritus of Health Policy, Epidemiology, and Global Health at the University of California, San Francisco, is an expert in health economics and health policy. He can speak about the economics of single-payer health plans, including the substantial savings that result from simplified billing-related administration and lower drug prices. He is also prepared to discuss the links between Covid-19, Black Lives Matter, and Medicare for All, as well as paths to Medicare for All. 

Kahn: “The vast majority of economic studies examining single-payer in the U.S. have found that these plans would save money starting in the first year, with savings growing each year after that. That’s because the huge savings from simplifying billing and negotiating lower drug prices far exceed the anticipated rise in the use of health services due to improved insurance coverage.”

Mobile phone: 510-457-8094 or email: jgkahn@gmail.com

Cindy Young

Cindy Young, currently Health Policy Director for the California Education Coalition for Health Care Reform (CECHCR), is an expert with over 40 years experience in healthcare delivery and its impact on California’s public school employers and employees. Through Young’s leadership and collaborative support, the Labor Campaign for Single Payer, the first coalition of unions that support and advance single-payer health care, was established. In conjunction with the Labor Campaign, she developed the first Single Payer Tool Kit for the public sector.  Young’s current research is on how California’s Other Post-Employment Benefits (OPEB) liability of $187 billion per year would be eliminated under single payer. She can also speak about single-payer policy, international health systems, and how single payer can improve the economic environment for our state and federal governments. 

Young: “The vast majority of studies of single-payer plans conclude that single payer would insure every U.S. resident, while improving the quality of care, saving money and most importantly, saving lives. The only way our state or country will resolve the healthcare crisis, including the critical issue of racial disparities, is by implementing a single-payer system”. 

Email Cindy at: canneyoung55@gmail.com

Andrew McGuire
Executive Director, California OneCare; Founder, Trauma Foundation; MacArthur Fellow; Emmy Award Winner

Expertise: California Single Payer Movement, Health Policy, Trauma Prevention, Consumer Protection, Advocacy Campaigns

Wendell Potter

Michael A. Rodriguez, MD, MPH
Professor and Vice Chair, Department of Family Medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA; Professor, Department of Community Health Sciences at UCLA Jonathan and Karin Fielding School of Public Health; Founding Chair, UCLA Minor on Global Health; Founding Director, UCLA Blum Center on Poverty and Health in Latin America; Director, AltaMed Institute for Health Equity.  Board Member: Blue Shield of California Foundation, Latino Coalition for a Healthy California, California OneCare, and Past President, California Academy of Family Physicians Foundation

Expertise: Health Equity, Migration/Immigration, Food Insecurity; Violence Prevention; Health Workforce; Ethnic/Racial Health Disparities, Health Policy, Single-Payer Health Care

Email: mrodriguez@mednet.ucla.edu

Harry Snyder, LLB
Harry Snyder, a longtime consumer advocate,  is the Advocacy Leader in Residence at the UC Berkeley School of Public Health. He previously directed the San Francisco Office of Consumer Reports Magazine for 25 years.

Snyder: “The evidence is clear; every economically developed country but ours has developed a system that provides health care, not access to health care but actual quality care, to everyone within its borders. And they have done it at much less cost and achieved better health outcomes. The myth that free enterprise works for delivering quality health care stands between us and a healthier, more prosperous nation. If we truly want to be a nation based on fairness and opportunity, every one of us must be able to walk into our doctors office and get the care we need when we need it.”

Mobile phone: 415-518-6715 Email: harrymsnyder@gmail.com

Paul Y. Song, MD

Dr. Paul Song, a board-certified radiation oncologist, is the chief operating officer and chief medical officer at NKMax, America, Inc. He’s president of Physicians for a National Health Program-California. He sees Medicaid and uninsured patients at Dignity California Hospital in Los Angeles.

Song: “As a longtime oncologist, I’ve seen far too many of my own patients suffer significant financial harm despite being insured as well as those without insurance present with far too advanced disease. As a result, I became convinced that our system is broken, inefficient, and immoral. A single-payer system would eliminate costly administrative waste, obtain steep discounts on services and drugs while increasing the overall level of care for everyone.”

Mobile phone: 310-310-1992 (texts welcome) or email: paulysong@gmail.com