Dr. Manan Trivedi, an Iraq War veteran from Pennsylvania, and a politician, is the new president of the National Physicians Alliance, a nationwide, nonprofit organization of doctors who advocate for patients.
Started 10 years ago, with an office in Washington, D.C., NPA has upward of 20,000 physicians and allied health professionals connected to it though there is no formal membership, Trivedi told Desi Talk. It is dedicated to “working with other health providers and civic organizations to achieve equitable, quality, affordable health care for all,” Trivedi said. “We seek to create a just, caring and affordable health care system,” Trivedi said.
He said he looked forward to working with the American Association of Physicians of Indian Origin, AAPI, the flagship organization of Indian-American physicians who number in the tens of thousands in this country.
“Overall the healthcare system is more of a ‘sick-care’ system,” Trivedi said. “So much is decided outside the hospital – the air we breathe, the jobs we have – so the social determinants of health – are at the crux,” of a good healthcare system. And Obamacare has only addressed the surface of it,” Trivedi added.
NPA is on the forefront of health activism and creates education and advocacy programs that promote health and foster active engagement of physicians with their communities, Trivedi said.
While the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare implemented under the Obama administration is not perfect, Trivedi said, the NPA would work to keep and improve it. The insurance costs needed to be brought down and ACA’s access expanded, he said.
Repealing Obamacare was on top of the agenda of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, and its future is uncertain under a Trump administration.
“It’s very likely the fight is going to be to defend what exists rather than expand it (Obamacare) under a Trump administration,” Trivedi predicted. “We are ready for that advocacy.”
Patients are the focus of the NPA. “I went into medicine because I felt patients needed a voice. And now more than ever this voice is critical,” he said.
Trivedi, an internist, is a practicing physician with a medical hospital and serves several hospitals. He is a politician who ran for the U.S. Congress in 2011, 2012 and 2014, unsuccessfully. After his medical training, he joined the United States Marine Corps.
From 2001 to 2003, Trivedi served as a battalion surgeon for the 1st Battalion, 5th Regiment Marine Corps Infantry Battalion, and he was among some of the first ground forces to enter Iraq, according to his biography on trivediforcongress.com. He earned the Combat Action Ribbon, the Navy Commendation Medal and his unit was given the Presidential Unit Citation.
Trivedi served as health policy advisor to the Navy Surgeon General and was an Assistant Professor of Medicine at the Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences.
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