The Right Care Alliance (RCA) is a grassroots coalition of clinicians, patients, and community members organizing to make health care institutions accountable to communities and put patients, not profits, at the heart of health care.
The Right Care Alliance is a group of patients and providers working together to demand meaningful change in our broken healthcare system. Achieving “right care” will require a significant transformation in the way medical care is delivered and financed. It’s clear that our current delivery and payment systems are failing the very people they are designed to protect. “Patients over Profits” is our philosophy – and the guiding principle behind every effort and goal of our organization.
We are a non-partisan, non-profit organization committed to ensuring that every American has a right to quality healthcare that is accessible, equitable, and delivered with dignity and compassion. No one is free in America if they live in fear: fear of bankruptcy from the costs of acute and long-term healthcare; fear of receiving care that causes harm and erodes their trust; and fear of losing access to care if they quit their job and are unable to afford insurance.
Our nation’s strength lies in the health of its people. Healthier people make up healthier neighborhoods, healthier neighborhoods make up healthier communities, and healthier communities enable all our citizens the chance to enjoy stability, peace of mind, and prosperity. To achieve freedom for every American, we need an integrated health system that is accountable to the patients and to the communities it serves. A system that is fair, inclusive, affordable, and able to consistently deliver high quality care to all. A system that will function as the foundation for our collective, national purpose and direction of our nation in the decades ahead.
The COVID pandemic exposed the deep, health-related inequities in our society and in our medical system. American healthcare functions like a business and not as a public good for the benefit of all. It is inefficient, wastes billions of dollars per year, and its incentives promote unnecessary care. Hospitals and long term care facilities such as nursing homes are largely funded by taxpayers, but they are allowed to operate like corporations that enrich the few at the expense of the many. Manufacturers of medical products – including the drug and device industries – are poorly regulated, which allows unsafe and dangerous products to reach the public. Profiteering is rampant. Healthcare costs are out of control, robbing communities of the ability to invest in long-term solutions that matter to the health of all citizens.
Our nation must also ensure that all people have access to clean air and water, healthy food, good education and good jobs. These are the conditions that have the greatest impact on our health. However, systematic injustices stemming from racism, sexism and other discriminatory belief systems along with rising economic inequality together disenfranchise individuals from obtaining these resources in the first place. Healthcare itself is not the complete answer; we must address all of the social factors that create health.
We call for a complete overhaul of the health system to ensure the following:
To achieve our vision and overcome the politically powerful, well-funded interests that oppose change, we need to build real grassroots power — and that requires a movement. We are calling on all people who recognize the deep problems in the current system to join the fight for a more inclusive, effective, affordable, and just system of care. The power needs to be in the hands of an informed and united public – it’s the only way to bring about change.
If you believe healthcare is a right not a commodity and that America’s people deserve a better system and better health, join the fight by joining the Right Care Alliance.
Right Care is a human right. It places the health and wellbeing of patients first. Right Care is affordable and effective. It is compassionate, honest, and safe. Right Care brings healing and comfort to patients, and satisfaction to clinicians. Achieving Right Care will require radically transforming how care is delivered and financed.
The Right Care Alliance Steering Committee is the formal governing body of the RCA. The committee meets regularly and makes collective decisions around strategy, communications, training, and governance within the movement.
The current members of the Steering Committee are:
The Right Care Alliance is grateful for support from its funders, the RESIST Foundation and Ben and Jerry’s Foundation, which allow the Alliance to continue organizing for health care independently.