We are in an election year, and as we continue to navigate a pandemic, exercising the right to vote is more important than ever. In this episode, I speak with the founders of the nonpartisan initiatives VoteHealth2020, and the Womxn Vote 100 initiative.

• Intro :14
• About Sharma :54
• About Pammal 1:23
• How did Sharma get to where she is today? 2:20
• How did Pammal find herself being active in the health care strategy and health care initiatives world? 5:02
• What is VoteHealth2020? 8:20
• Pammal on VoteHealth 2020 and where she hopes to see it go 10:45
• What types of things are you initiating and what types of plans do you have to make health care an important part of the dialogue in this election? 12:18
• Do you feel that the tide has changed and that physicians are now more comfortable being “political?” 17:09
• Anecdote on the importance of dialogues with patients about being active in the political process 20:05
• About the Womxn Vote 100 initiative 26:45
• Are there certain metrics that you hope to aim for with the initiative? 32:45
• Sharma on being able to educate patients on how to vote safely during the pandemic 35:55
• Pammal’s one pearl 41:40
• Sharma’s one pearl 42:03
• How to find VoteHealth 2020 43:23

Manisha Sharma, MD, FAAFP, is a board-certified family medicine physician, who works at the juncture of patient care, social justice, health policy, and innovation. She has organized and led numerous grassroots physician campaigns through the organization Doctors for America where she served as the National Director of Leadership Cultivation. She is a current Leadership Fellow at the California Health Care Foundation. She is a co-founder of VoteHealth 2020.   

Shalini Pammal, MSPH, is a creative strategist, movement builder and health advocate. She focuses on the intersection between health policy, health care delivery and financing for payer, provider, systems and services clients at the Boston Consulting Group. She is a co-founder of VoteHealth 2020.

We’d love to hear from you! Send your comments/questions to Dr. Jain at [email protected]. Sharma and Pammal can be reached at votehealth2020.com and on Twitter at @votehealth2020. Follow us on Twitter @HemOncToday @ShikhaJainMD

Disclosures: Jain reports she is a paid freelance writer for Lippincott. Pammal and Sharma are the founders of VoteHealth 2020.