Rashi Fein
Template:TOCnestleft Rashi Fein
Career/activism
After serving in the Navy during WW2, Rashi Fein has spent much of the following decades thinking and writing about health care reform. He served on the Truman Commission on the Health Care Needs of the Nation, which supported national health insurance and regionalization of health care delivery—in 1952! He was later a senior staff member of President Kennedy’s Council of Economic Advisors, where he helped develop the initial legislation for Medicare, a model he favors for the health care crisis today. Professor Fein has also served on the Board of the Committee for National Health Insurance under the leadership of former UAW President Doug Fraser and under Walter Reuther on a Board investigating malnutrition in the United States. He is a charter member of the Institute of Medicine, has received numerous honors for service to that field, and sits on a number of not-for-profit health care institutions. In his spare time Rashi has written nine books, the latest of which, Lessons Learned: Medicine, Economics and Public Policy, will be published in November 2009.[1]
Democratic Socialists of America
Debs-Thomas-Bernstein Awards Reception
2001
On June 12, 2001, Rashi Fein was a supporter of the annual Debs-Thomas-Bernstein Awards reception which is hosted by Boston Democratic Socialists of America. The Debs-Thomas-Bernstein Award is presented to "leaders who fight for democracy, here at home and around the world". Ed Clark, Honorary Vice Chair of Democratic Socialists of America; and Communist Party USA-linked Dessima Williams received the Debs-Thomas-Bernstein Award, while DSAer John Maher received the Michael Harrington Lifetime Achievement Award. DSAer David Knuttunen; Boston-based "social justice" organization Neighbor to Neighbor; and In These Times members Abby Rockefeller and Lee Halprin were benefactors of the reception. The reception took place at the home of DSAer Marcia Peters and her husband David Karaus in Jamaica Plain.[2]
2009
The 2009 Debs-Thomas-Bernstein Awards, sponsored by Boston Democratic Socialists of America, took place Tuesday, June 30, 6:30—8:30 P.M., at the historic home of Marcia Peters and David Karaus, Jamaica Plain.
Honorees were Professor, author, and health care reformer Rashi Fein, along with the winners of an inspiring union election at St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center in Brighton, accepted by Sonia Marshall, patient care assistant and key organizer of the campaign. [3]
The award to Rashi Fein was presented by Sheila Decter of the Jewish Alliance for Law and Social Action—"it turns out they both shared warm memories of Julie Bernstein".[4]
Rashi Fein was also a patron of the event.
DSA health forum
On October 21, 2009 Boston Democratic Socialists of America and Mass-Care co-sponsored a forum "Health Care Reform 2009:Politics and Paranoia" at 33 Harrison Ave., Boston. Invited speakers were;
- Rashi Fein, Professor of Medical Economics, Emeritus, at the Harvard Medical School, and author of nine books, including the soon-to-be-published Lessons Learned: Medicine, Economics and Public Policy. A senior staff person on President Kennedy’s Council of Economic Advisors, he helped develop the initial legislation for Medicare
- Chip Berlet, Senior Analyst at Political Research Associates, where he specializes in researching right-wing hate groups, with occasional forays into the left, such as his recent tangle with the 9- 11 “Truth” movement. He is co-author of Right Wing Populism in America: Too Close for Comfort. Chip has been sued twice by the Lyndon LaRouche cult— and won both times!
- Marcia Angell, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Social Medicine at the Harvard Medical School, and formerly Editor in Chief of the New England Journal of Medicine.[5]