Mandy Pino said she had hoped the United States would have universal health care by the time her children were grown.
She has great-grandchildren now. By the time her great-grandchildren are older, it might happen, she said.
Pino and about 20 others lined Lomas Boulevard on Friday to rally for universal health care.
"It's a very uphill fight, because you young people don't know how long we've been working," Pino said.
Every year the American Medical Student Association holds the rally as part of Universal Health Care Week. Other activities included health-care seminars and discussions.
More than 45 million Americans, including 400,000 New Mexicans, do not have health insurance, according to a news release.
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Though the students were not expecting any immediate changes, Katrina Peariso, UNM medical student, said they were just trying to make people aware universal health care is a real option.
Medical students are presented with fictitious cases where patients do not have health insurance. Patients without insurance are more likely to decline in health, because they are not thinking about their health but how much it's going to cost, Peariso said.
Instead of going to a general practitioner, Peariso said, many people visit the emergency room for primary care and usually wait about 10 hours.
"There are legitimate folks with real traumas, but things could be taken care of if they just came in earlier," she said.
Peariso said when students cannot offer patients everything they need because of cost, it makes them uncomfortable.
"We're basically rationing what we can do based on what's feasible for the patient," she said.
Peariso said the problem with trying to reform the system is an overall resistance to change. People are under the misconception the United States has the best health care in the world, but it is No. 38 on the World Health Organization list, she said.
Medical students are planning to lobby the Legislature in the spring for the Health Security Act, which would provide health care to all New Mexicans.
"It's really the idea that we think everyone should have health care," said Alana Benjamin, medical student.
She said there is no easy way to achieve it, though.
"It's just constant work," Benjamin said.
According to the Institute of Medicine, about 18,000 Americans die each year, because they do not have health coverage. If Americans received uninterrupted health care, the potential economic value could be between $65 billion and $130 billion, according to an IOM report.
