Icahn School of Medicine Mount Sinai ACA Protest

This experience was eye opening for me. Even a little life changing. We respect our doctors. We trust our doctors. We expect that when it comes to our medications and diagnosis, that they know what they're talking about. But I can't say that I've ever thought to ask them their personal opinion on the Affordable Care Act. I never realized how it affects them everyday, all day, in ways that differ from patient to patient. 

I watched Mount Sinai students throughout the day put action behind their opinion. I witnessed them out of the hospital, and out of the classroom, fight for the patients they don't even have yet. During their day of action they held workshops that focused on things like letter writing to legislators, and knowing your protesting rights. They discussed their demands to congress, shared personal ways they stay involved in their communities, and even had guest speaker Eric Sawyer, founder of Act up, share his talk on Hopelessness and the path to Resistance. They know the fight does not stop here, their main goal was to educate themselves, and educate the public by bringing attention to the possible deaths that would occur if the Affordable Care Act were to be repealed. It is estimated that a total of 43,000 lives could be lost each year if patients were to lose their insurance through the ACA. These students, doctors, and professors all believe that if our country were to start completely from scratch or even worse, delay any longer, that the affects from that would not only be economically evident, but also physically evident with their patients. 

After spending just a few hours with them I started to realize that these doctors weren't doctors, they were activists who just happened to practice medicine. They were all more than willing to take on this fight. They believed it was the responsibility of any doctor. It was their oath; to first do no harm. So marching through the streets of Manhattan to the News Corp building was all part of the job. They spent 4 minutes and 30 seconds laying on the ground to represent the unnecessary deaths of their patients, so that maybe one day because of this, those patients would live