While the United States can claim to have the best medical care and the latest technology, 41 million Americans do not have access to it.
In response to this statistic, the Lifesavers Committee -- a part of Student Nurses at Penn -- set up a table on Locust Walk yesterday to distribute pamphlets and encourage their classmates to sign individualized petitions to be sent to local legislators.
This week's effort is an extension of "Cover the Uninsured Week" on March 10-16, which was part of a national campaign to raise awareness of the plight of those lacking healthcare coverage.
Nursing freshman and Lifesavers Committee Chairwoman Kelley Martin said that each month, Lifesavers works on a public health issue and creates a pamphlet to raise its awareness. This month, SNAP member Shannon Fair brought it to Martin's attention that it had been Cover the Uninsured Week during Penn's spring break, so Lifesavers decided to bring the issue to Penn after students returned to campus.
"We want to show the Penn community, who takes insurance for granted... it's a pretty important issue" affecting everyone, Martin said.
As those without health insurance are unlikely to receive preventative services, the cost of leaving millions of Americans uninsured negatively impacts everyone. Under the current political climate, health insurance problems have been ignored recently, according to Fair.
"This is a nationwide campaign to bring the issue back into the spotlight," said Fair, a Nursing sophomore. "It has fallen by the wayside, but it is a major issue."
Fair explained that because of the rising cost of health coverage, lack of insurance has become a problem for working, middle class Americans. With the current slow economy, the problem will only get worse if it continues to be ignored.
"More and more people are losing their coverage," Fair said. "Americans think we have the best medical care," but that applies only to the richest 1 percent.
According to Fair, when the best care received by the richest Americans is averaged with the worst care of the uninsured, the U.S. healthcare system comes out lower than more than 20 other countries, including some with socialized medicine.
"I would really like to get a student group started that had healthcare reform as its goal," Fair added.
And from the committee's success yesterday -- its table on the Walk ran out of petitions by 2 p.m. and had students sign makeshift petitions -- Fair's desire to start a student healthcare reform group could soon become a reality.
During Cover the Uninsured Week, three University deans -- School of Social Work Dean Richard Gelles, School of Nursing Dean Afaf Meleis and School of Medicine Dean Arthur Rubenstein -- signed a proclamation supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, a healthcare philanthropy group.
