Profile
David Himmelstein received his medical degree from Columbia University and completed internal medicine training at Highland Hospital/University of California San Francisco and a fellowship in general internal medicine at Harvard.
He has served as chief of the division of social and community medicine at Cambridge Hospital. Dr. Himmelstein has authored or co authored more than 100 journal articles and three books, including widely cited studies of medical bankruptcy and the high administrative costs of the U.S. healthcare system. His 1984 study of patient dumping led to the enactment of EMTALA, the law that banned that practice.
A co-founder of Physicians for a National Health Program, Dr. Himmelstein co-edits PNHP’s newsletter and is a principal author of PNHP articles published in the JAMA and the New England Journal of Medicine.