Why Healthcare Needs A Civil Rights-Style Movement

What will it take to produce genuine reform in our system? I think of the Civil Rights movement that blossomed in America after World War II. Looking at the horrors of Jim Crow, bold leaders saw a system that was a national embarrassment and demanded reform. And so a movement was born and carried by a brave aggregation of ordinary people who were not about to rest until they saw concrete change in front of their eyes.

We need a similar movement in healthcare. We need bold leaders who will admit that our current system is an embarrassment. We need clinicians like Atul Nakhasi who understand that a little more common sense can heal people. We need employers to stand up and say they’re no longer willing to fork health benefits into the furnace of lackluster outcomes. We need insurers to focus their efforts on covering low-income Americans and communities of color, and to go to bat for their members by demanding quality care at a fair cost. 

Go to top