Citing the persistence of thousands of preventable deaths each year due to lack of health insurance, students at more than twenty medical schools will hold teach-ins, rallies and candlelight vigils on Oct. 1, 2015 to bring national attention to “our failing healthcare system” and the need for single-payer health reform.

Students for a National Health Program (SNaHP) – working in coalition with the American Medical Student Association, WhiteCoats4BlackLives, the Latino Medical Student Association, Universities Allied for Essential Medicine, and Pre-Health Dreamers – will hold teach-ins, rallies, and candlelight vigils at more than thirty campuses to remember the millions of people in our country who remain uninsured, underinsured and underserved by our current healthcare system.

The students want to underscore the need for a more fundamental health reform – a nonprofit, publicly financed, single-payer health system.

The United States is the only industrialized nation in the world that does not guarantee universal health care.

The students said that the Affordable Care Act is neither universal nor affordable. It will leave 30 million Americans uninsured and a comparable number underinsured, vulnerable to financial distress in the event of illness, they said.

Sharply rising deductibles and copays are deterring the insured from seeking care, and skyrocketing drug prices are putting medications out of reach.

Tens of thousands of people will continue to die every year just because they lack health insurance, they said.

Medical problems are the leading cause of bankruptcy in the U.S., and research shows nearly 80 percent of those declaring bankruptcy due to medical debt had insurance at the onset of their illness.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of Medicare.

“As medical students, part of our mission is to ensure that everyone who needs care gets it,” the students said in a statement. “One way to achieve this goal is by improving the Medicare program and expanding it to cover all Americans. There is a bill in Congress, H.R. 676, that would do precisely that.”

“We urge our fellow students and the public to join us for this #TenOne: Medicare-for-All National Day of Action on Thursday, Oct. 1, to bring national attention to our failing healthcare system and the need for single-payer health reform.”