The Creighton chapter of Students for a National Health Plan planned their strategy to pass a resolution through the Douglas County Board of Health in support of a single-payer health care system. 

SNaHP, a single-issue political club and the student arm of Physicians for a National Health Program, held a roundtable discussion on Feb. 19, during which they discussed their mission and how they planned to forward their goals on a local level. 

India Claflin, a third-year medical student and the club’s founder, emphasized the ways in which our current health care system, which ties health insurance to employment, created health care inequities. 

“Everyone either has been affected themselves or knows someone who has been,” Claflin said. 

In response, the club planned to pass a resolution through the Douglas County Board of Health indicating its support for a single-payer system. 

“A pretty big step in advocacy work is getting people on board with, ‘oh, see, single-payer isn’t so scary, your local council members already support it,’” Claflin said. “It’s a stepping stone to more important legislation.” 

Last semester SNaHP sent a pair of delegates, Allison Benjamin and Katie Rooney, both sophomores in the College of Arts and Sciences, to a national convention in Boston, during which they discussed strategies for working toward their goal. 

The convention was where their idea to pass a resolution was formed, and where Benjamin says she was inspired to keep pursuing this goal. 

“It wasn’t necessarily the information I learned, but the students who are really invested and passionate about making the healthcare system a better system for their patients and for themselves,” Benjamin said. “I went into it with some doubts, thinking ‘is it realistic?’ and I think it really changed my perspective.” 

In addition to their plans for passing a resolution, the club plans to do more publicity for itself in an attempt to be more visible on campus.  

The efforts mark the first time the club has actively attempted to directly impact policy change on any level, but they established plans to continue past the Board of Health, hoping to eventually pass a similar resolution with Creighton’s chapter of the American Medical Association. 

“You’re not going to change the world in a day,” Rooney said. “Having conversations with people who don’t agree with you on everything is important, even within the club we’re not going to think the exact same but we still work together.”