He is the co-founder, with Steffie Woolhandler, of Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP), an organization advocating for single-payer healthcare in the United States.
He then completed his training at the University of California San Francisco's Highland Hospital and his fellowship at Harvard Medical School, both in internal medicine.
He was formerly the chief of the division of social and community medicine at Cambridge Hospital in Massachusetts.
[citation needed] He is the co-founder with Steffie Woolhandler of Physicians for a National Health Program, an organization advocating for single-payer healthcare in the United States.
For example, a 1984 study he published on patient dumping spurred the United States' Congress to pass the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, a law which banned the practice.