San Jose physician pushing for equal health care access at both political conventions

San Jose native Dr. Rita Nguyen is spending most of her two-week summer vacation on a bus, visiting the Republican and Democratic National Conventions with one goal in mind: spreading the word about affordable quality health care for all.

Dr. Rita Nguyen

As a member of Doctors For America, a group of 15,000 U.S. physicians and medical students working to improve the health of the nation by ensuring that everyone has access to health care, Nguyen is passionate about the tour's message, called "Patients Over Politics."

"We don't care if you're a Republican or Democrat," said the 28-year-old Mt. Pleasant High School graduate, who went on to Stanford University and then Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

"What we care about is what's good for our patients and communities, and we've seen how the Affordable Care Act has helped our patients. We don't want to see it weakened, delayed or repealed. This is about patients' lives and that should be the bottom line. Not the politics."

Nguyen was at the GOP convention in Tampa and on Monday arrived at the Democrat's convention in Charlotte, N.C., where she and 50 others, mostly doctors and some patients, are providing preventive care to the public, including blood pressure and diabetes screening.

At the same time, they're gathering signatures for petitions the group hopes to deliver to politicians in Washington, D.C., before the Nov. 6 presidential election. So far, she said, the tour has garnered 7,000 signatures, including those from deans of medical schools, leaders of health care systems, and heads of national physician organizations.

"The one resounding thing is that people are very interested to hear what doctors have to say about the Affordable Care Act," said Nguyen of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care law signed by President Barack Obama in 2010 and referred to by many as Obamacare. Backers say the law is aimed primarily at decreasing the number of uninsured Americans and reducing the overall costs of health care.

But others want to see the law overturned. GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney calls Obamacare "the wrong approach," saying it will make America a less attractive place to practice medicine, discourage innovators from investing in lifesaving technology, and restrict consumer choice.

Nguyen can't recall a time when she wasn't volunteering or getting involved, whether it was painting her middle school gym or serving as president of her high school community service club.

While an undergrad majoring in human biology at Stanford, she co-founded a free health clinic at San Jose's Overfelt High School that helped mostly Spanish and Vietnamese immigrants.

The people she met there and the stories they told "broke my heart," Nguyen said, recalling one Vietnamese woman who suffered from Parkinson's disease, a disorder in the brain that leads to shaking and difficulty with walking and coordination.

Even though the woman and her husband worked, they couldn't afford medical insurance, so while they could pay for some medication to help her manage her disease, when it ran out, as it always did, said Nguyen, "she would have to crawl around at home and drag herself" until her husband would come home from work and carry her to the bathroom and kitchen.

"They weren't old enough to qualify for Medicare, and they weren't poor enough to qualify for Medicaid," Nguyen said, adding the woman's story was one of the driving forces behind her becoming a doctor.

Her years in Baltimore at Johns Hopkins opened her eyes even more to the plight of those without health care, she said.

"So many of the patients would not get covered by insurance companies because they had pre-existing conditions or they just did not qualify for any assistance, so they weren't taking their medicines. They would go into the hospital over and over again," said Nguyen, who is currently a medical resident at Harvard College where she is graduating next year in internal medicine.

But, she said, if they had a primary care doctor who could see them and manage their condition, they could stay home and save the medical system money.

Among those joining Nguyen in her mission is Kenya Wheeler, who speaks about his own experiences in the health care system.

The 38-year-old Berkeley native and UC-Berkeley graduate student tells his story to conventiongoers and others about the day he woke up last summer suffering seizures.

Wheeler was diagnosed with lymphoma in his brain, which required a host of chemotherapy treatments that have cost him $600,000. Though he is insured as a student through the university and is now in remission, Wheeler said making this trip is important to help bring attention to those less fortunate who don't have health care.

"Every American should have access to health care, regardless of how much money you have, or where you live, or who you are," said Wheeler. "It's not about partisan politics, it's about human rights."

Tracy Seipel