About CAHPSA: What We Stand For!
The California Health Professional Student Alliance (CAHPSA) advocates for Universal Health Care and a Single Payer Plan for all of California, and for America.
“We have a dream of UHC" -- a speech by Parker Duncan and Renu T, at Lobby Day 06. (See original speech here.)
We are a broad-based group of health and pre-health professional students who exclusively support SB 810, the California Universal Healthcare Act, as well as the national equivalent, HR 676 / S 703.
Each of these bills (at State and national level, respectively) accomplishes what no other reform proposal does: fundamentally realigns the incentives towards HEALTH and removes the profit incentive of healthcare financing.
Additionally, they are also the only plans that comply with the Institute of Medicine Guiding Principles for Health Insurance Reform: everyone included, a lifelong, affordable, sustainable system that promotes health).
Further, as the future of healthcare provision and leadership, we feel we have a large role to play in helping shape the direction of healthcare reform. Thus, our motto, “Tomorrow’s healthcare professionals, supporting publicly-funded, private delivery healthcare reform TODAY.”
Through our advocacy for SB 810 & HR 676, CaHPSA cultivates leadership and advocacy skills among health professional students to effect change in the health care system overall.
Because even with the passage of SB 810 / HR 676, our work -– in terms of achieving social justice and excellence in healthcare delivery -– has only just begun: 810/676 merely “even the table” so that we can begin to work on issues that we cannot even address right now due to such inherent structural injustices in our non-system of sick-care delivery.
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Our history
We began as a handful of American Medical Student Association (AMSA) medical students, who met at a National Conference in March, 2005, just a month after then-SB 840 was introduced by State Senator Sheila Kuehl – and we wanted to get involved.
In January, 2006, we held a Lobby Day in Sacramento – and 125 medical students from 5 campuses showed up.
Lobby Day has continued each year since, and has continued to grow – beyond medical school to include pan-health professional students.This website (www.cahpsa.org) serves as the focal point for communication and strategizing for our Universal Health Care advocacy -- as well as the “historian” for our events:
As we continue to grow, local affiliate groups including campus chapters develop their own projects, activism and educational efforts.Our Leaders
We have several leadership teams that form the governing voice and direction of CaHPSA. Meet our leaders!