Washington, D.C.– On Thursday, March 12, hundreds of medical and pre-medical students from the American Medical Student Association (AMSA) will march on Capitol Hill and urge the nation’s leaders to enact legislation that will train enough primary care health professionals to help provide care for everyone. The students are in town for the AMSA 59th Annual Convention in Arlington, Virginia.
“As the country’s future physician workforce, we insist that our leaders consider a single public plan as the very minimum health reform option,” proclaimed Dr. Brian Hurley, AMSA national president.
At 2:00 pm, students will march down Pennsylvania Avenue to rally at the steps of the Capitol. After, they will visit legislators and ask them to pass legislation in the House and Senate to increase authorized funding for the U.S. National Health Service Corps to $1.15 billion by 2015 and to strengthen global health systems and health workforce with $14 billion for the world’s most devastating infectious diseases.
“I am heartbroken to tell you that after I finish medical school, insurance executives will dictate to me that my job is to deny care to my patients,” said Mary Carol Jennings, AMSA Jack Rutledge Legislative Director and organizer of the rally and lobby day. “Congress and our President share my responsibility to ensure that my patients, here and abroad, have access to a doctor, and to the health care to which I have dedicated my life to providing.”
The National Health Service Corps funds debt relief and scholarship incentives for qualified primary health care providers to practice in federally underserved areas. On the campaign trail, President Obama committed to doubling foreign assistance over the next five years.
“Health is global; disease knows no physical boundaries,” said AMSA national policy team member Shazia Mehmood. “Not only must we drastically scale up the number of primary care providers we train in the United States, but we must also create a comprehensive, evidence-based strategy that directs our foreign aid to building sustainable health care jobs and health workforces in developing countries.”
Kim Cunningham is the Director of Public Relations at the American Medical Student Association.
