By Scotty Schenck, news correspondent

Healthcare is an ever-evolving system, constantly experiencing reform. Enter single-payer healthcare, a system in which a limited number of public organizations are responsible for health financing, but delivery of health services remains private.

“Under a single-payer system, all Americans would be covered for all medically necessary services,” according to Mass-Care, a coalition of organizations that want health care reform and one of the groups that helped to put together the Rally for the Right to Health.

The rally, which took place at the Boston Common on Sunday, had two goals:  reform to a single-payer health care system in Mass. and create a global health emergency fund of $20 billion to deal with epidemics such as Ebola. Along with Mass-Care, Partners in Health Engage, Health Leads, GlobeMed and students of local universities spearheaded the rally.

The event was also part of the Global Day of Action initiative hosted by Article 25, a non-profit organization aimed at advocating for a right to health.

“The health care system as we have it is broken,” Matthew Zinck, vice president of Partners in Health Engagement at Northeastern University and a volunteer coordinator for the Rally for the Right to Health, said. “It’s reliant on insurers, and that is a middleman. That middleman is taking so much money away that could be used to provide care.”

Zinck said he believes that health and health care are rights each individual has. He also said that he wants people coming to the rally to take part in the advocacy and come away with knowledge of the single-payer system.

Patricia Downs-Berger, co-chair for Mass-Care since 1997 and retired physician, was also present at the rally. She said that Mass-Care is currently working on legislation to reform health care so people are the primary concern and money is a secondary concern.

“What we want is a system where patient care is first,” Downs-Berger said. “In [the current] system it’s what you can pay for, it’s the money that comes first… If you don’t have money, you have a big problem, and that’s not right.”

Speakers at the rally included executive director of Mass-Care Ture Turbull, Chief Medical Officer of Partners in Health Joia Mukherjee, Northeastern law professor Brook Baker and former administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Donald Berwick.

Downs-Berger also said that she was happy to see so many young faces at the rally. She said that it’s wonderful to see students getting involved, because the single-payers system is typically associated with older suburban residents.

Two of these young volunteers are Northeastern students sophomore psychology major Hayley Sykes and third-year history major Nathan Guerin. Both are involved in the Partners in Health Engaged chapter at Northeastern.

Sykes said she joined the club because she wants to go into health care field. According to Sykes, the health care system we currently have has many inefficiencies.

Guerin said his interest in health care started when he was an exchange student in Indonesia, where he saw the huge disparity in its health care system, especially when he volunteered at a school. He said he saw students who were sick and so poor they couldn’t afford to do anything about it.

“We feel that healthcare is a human right,” Guerin said. “Where you’re born shouldn’t determine whether you live or die.”

Photo by Scotty Schenck