David U. Himmelstein is an American academic physician specializing in

internal medicine Internal medicine, also known as general medicine in Commonwealth nations, is a medical specialty for medical doctors focused on the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of diseases in adults. Its namesake stems from "treatment of diseases of ...

. He is a distinguished professor of

public health Public health is "the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting health through the organized efforts and informed choices of society, organizations, public and private, communities and individuals". Analyzing the de ...

and health policy in the CUNY School of Public Health at

Hunter College Hunter College is a public university in New York City, United States. It is one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York and offers studies in more than one hundred undergraduate and postgraduate fields across five schools ...

, an adjunct clinical professor at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and a lecturer at Harvard Medical School. He is the co-founder, with

Steffie Woolhandler use both this parameter and , birth_date to display the person's date of birth, date of death, and age at death) --> , death_place = , death_cause = , body_discovered = , resting_place = , resting_place_coordinates = ...

, of Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP), an organization advocating for single-payer healthcare in the United States.

Biography

Himmelstein received his M.D. from the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. He then completed his training at the University of California San Francisco's Highland Hospital and his fellowship at Harvard Medical School, both in internal medicine. He was formerly the chief of the division of social and community medicine at Cambridge Hospital in

Massachusetts Massachusetts ( ; ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Maine to its east, Connecticut and Rhode ...

. He is a distinguished professor of

and health policy in the CUNY School of Public Health at

, an adjunct clinical professor at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and a lecturer at Harvard Medical School. He is the co-founder with

of Physicians for a National Health Program, an organization advocating for single-payer healthcare in the United States.

Research

Himmelstein is the author or co-author of over 100 peer-reviewed articles on health care-related issues like medical bankruptcies and health care costs in the United States. For example, a 1984 study he published on patient dumping spurred the United States' Congress to pass the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, a law which banned the practice. With Woolhandler, he has also researched the effect of uninsurance on mortality.

Personal life

David Himmelstein's partner, since 1979, is PNHP co-founder

. They have two daughters.

Writings

* Gaffney, Adam, David U. Himmelstein, and

, "The Only Way to Fix US Health Care" (partly a review of Liran Einav and Amy Finkelstein, ''We've Got You Covered: Rebooting American Health Care'', Portfolio, 2023, 275 pp.), ''

The New York Review of Books ''The New York Review of Books'' (or ''NYREV'' or ''NYRB'') is a semi-monthly magazine with articles on literature, culture, economics, science and current affairs. Published in New York City, it is inspired by the idea that the discussion of ...

'', vol. LXXI, no. 17 (7 November 2024), pp. 34, 36–38. "Under our patchwork public-private ealth-caresystem, people lose coverage for many reasons.... simpler, more efficient, healthier, and fairer alternative has long been available: universal single-tier coverage. Representative Pramila Jayapal and Senator

Bernie Sanders Bernard Sanders (born September8, 1941) is an American politician and activist who is the Seniority in the United States Senate, senior United States Senate, United States senator from the state of Vermont. He is the longest-serving independ ...

have introduced Medicare for All bills delineating that approach.... Profit seeking in medicine is not new.

Pliny the Elder Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/24 79), known in English as Pliny the Elder ( ), was a Roman Empire, Roman author, Natural history, naturalist, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the Roman emperor, emperor Vesp ...

complained of physicians' 'avarice, their greedy bargains made with those whose fate lies in the balances.'... e contemporary takeover of

health care Health care, or healthcare, is the improvement or maintenance of health via the preventive healthcare, prevention, diagnosis, therapy, treatment, wikt:amelioration, amelioration or cure of disease, illness, injury, and other disability, physic ...

provision and financing by mammoth investor-owned firms – ... the ' medical-industrial complex'... – is unprecedented.... Beginning in the 1980s investor-owned hospital chains rapidly expanded... Now vertical integration – one firm owning, say, insurance plans as well as medical providers – is remaking the medical landscape. Increasingly, your doctor is employed by your insurer and risks unemployment if they fight insurers' restrictions on your care.... Even more perniciously, private equity firms are invading health care... Nationwide, private equity acquisition causes a 24 percent fall in hospitals' assets and a 25 percent rise in patients' hospital-acquired complications, such as

infection An infection is the invasion of tissue (biology), tissues by pathogens, their multiplication, and the reaction of host (biology), host tissues to the infectious agent and the toxins they produce. An infectious disease, also known as a transmis ...

s and falls." . 36."Another system of health care – without medical debt, insurance hassles, red tape, corporate predation, copays, punishing deductibles, and paltry care – is possible, not to mention that support for it is hugely popular." (p. 38.)

References

External links