Dear Doctors and Healers,
You stand as the guardians of life, entrusted with the sacred responsibility to heal the sick, ease the suffering, and protect the vulnerable. You pledged an oath, a solemn promise: First, do no harm. Yet as I read about the unbearable choices facing both you and your patients in our for-profit healthcare system, I am compelled to ask: How can you continue to uphold that oath while participating in a system that inflicts so much harm on so many?
The system you work within, the labyrinth of insurance approvals, profit margins, and financial gatekeeping, is killing people. This is not a hypothetical; this is a reality. Millions of your fellow Americans delay care, ration medication, or simply suffer in silence because they cannot afford to see you, their would-be healer. Each of you has seen it firsthand: the patient who skipped their insulin because it was too expensive, the child whose parents chose between groceries and an ER visit, the elderly widow left bankrupt by hospital bills.
And yet, this is the system in which you are forced to practice. A moral injury has been inflicted on you, the healers, as you navigate this broken machine. I do not envy your position. You face impossible decisions every day, caught between the needs of your patients and the demands of a healthcare industry that values profit over people.
But I must ask you, in love and in earnest: Where is your outrage? Where is your refusal to participate in a system that contradicts your very purpose? You are complicit not because you are evil, but because the system forces you to choose between doing harm and doing nothing. And for too long, the system has been allowed to persist, fortified by your silence.
You have power, more than you realize. As individual practitioners, you may feel small against the behemoth of corporate healthcare, but collectively, you are indispensable. Without you, there is no system. If you stood together and demanded change, refused to allow insurers to dictate care, exposed the corruption that prioritizes shareholder profits over human lives, what could they do?
The change we need is radical, but not impossible. The world’s richest country can and must guarantee healthcare as a human right, not a commodity. And you, the healers, have the moral authority to lead that fight.
I understand the risks. I understand the fear. But I also understand this: Every day that this system remains intact, it betrays your oath. And every day you remain silent, it chips away at your humanity and ours.
Please, for the sake of your patients, for the sake of your profession, and for the sake of your own souls: Speak up. Organize. Demand that the system you work within reflects the values you hold dear. Your hands are skilled, but your voices are powerful. Use them. Heal the system so that it may heal the people.
With hope and faith in your strength,
R.L. Lawrence