Nelson Adamson, MD

Dr. Nelson Adamson is happy to be rejoin the PNHP-MN Board.  He hopes to contribute some perspective from his position as a practitioner currently working full time in a multi-specialty group located in central Minnesota. As a radiation oncologist, he often witnesses the toxic effects of the financial burden brought onto patients by our dysfunctional sick care system. Dr. Nelson has been married for 38 years, has 4 adult children, and a 2 year old grandson.  (He is proud that three of his children have pursued medical careers!) 


Christy Atkinson, MD, PGY-1

Christy is a resident physician in family medicine at the University of Minnesota Smiley’s program. She is excited to be joining the PNHP-MN board! She first became involved in the single-payer universal health care movement in medical school when she attended a SNaHP conference and was exposed to the unfortunate realities of how our current health insurance system hurts patients. Now as a resident serving the diverse people of Minneapolis, she sees firsthand every day how our current system perpetuates health inequities as patients are forced to make inconceivable decisions about their care due to cost, as insurance companies turn large profits each quarter.


Kari Carlson, MPH, MS2

Kari is a long-standing board member and former administrative assistant for PNHP-MN. Kari graduated with her Master of Public Health degree focusing in Health Equity and Environmental Health and spent several years working with a Federally Qualified Health Center serving the North/Northeast Minneapolis and surrounding communities. She is currently an MS2 at U of MN- TC.

Kari became drawn to the fight for equitable access to healthcare after experiencing and witnessing innumerable family and personal hardships for the sake of healthcare profits, and decided to add Single Payer advocacy to her career pursuing health equity after hearing a PNHP speaker in 2013.


John Crosson, MD – Board Chair

John spent his entire medical career in hospitals devoted to delivering excellent medical care to the underserved first at Minneapolis General Hospital and then HCMC. He trained initially as an internist then decided to become a Pathologist. From the early 1970s to 2005 he worked at HCMC as a general Pathologist. During this time he saw many patients who suffered greatly because they had inadequate insurance and could not afford to be seen in the health care system in a timely way. For over 25 years he has worked on getting universal health care available for all in the US. Currently he spends his time at the U of Minnesota teaching medical students and residents. He mentions the need to have single payer health care to them every chance he gets. 


Elizabeth Frost, MD

Elizabeth Frost, M.D., is a family practice doctor working at the Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota. After graduating from residency at the University of Minnesota, Elizabeth spent almost a year volunteering with Doctors for Global Health in Chiapas, Mexico. She currently works with a heavily Latino and mostly uninsured population in Minneapolis, and is confronted daily with economic barriers to basic care. She co-founded Physicians for a National Health Program – Minnesota along with Dr. Ann Settgast.


Sara Lara, APRN, CNP, PHN – Treasurer

Sara is a Family Nurse Practitioner working in Family Medicine at HCMC. She has also lived and
worked in Honduras and Ethiopia and these experiences give her a unique perspective of our
current model of health care and the importance of an inclusive system. She joined the PNHP MN
board in 2021. She wanted to do more to support a system that invited sick (and well) people to get
the physical and mental medical help they need, when they need it, without the worry of financial
burden. She is excited to work with other medical professionals that have similar dedication to
improving health care for all through a single payer system.


Romi Lee, MS2

Romi is a 2nd year medical student at the University of Minnesota with experience working for various political campaigns, including Bernie Sanders’s, which is how she was first introduced to single-payer healthcare. She was introduced to PNHP by fellow board member Dr. John Crosson and subsequently participated in the summer internship where she conducted research on the role of safety-net hospitals in serving uninsured and underinsured populations. She hopes to continue fighting for equitable healthcare access in her personal and professional career.


Preethiya Sekar, MS3

As a medical student, Preethiya spends much of her time learning about diseases and their treatments, but is also unable to ignore the gross inequity in access to even the most basic diagnostics and treatment. She is excited to be joining the board of PNHP-MN to imagine a better, more affordable and accessible healthcare future for everyone. She remains optimistic that healthcare workers can and will be important advocates to ensure the future of health-insurance legislature will hold fewer technocratic solutions and more patient-centric solutions.


Brian Yablon, MD

Dr. Brian Yablon is an internal medicine and pediatric hospitalist at HCMC in Minneapolis, where he enjoys providing care for a diverse and largely underserved patient population as well as teaching residents and medical students. He never ceases to be shocked by the inequity and inhumanity of our health care system. As a medical resident, he served on the board of PNHP-MN from 2010-2012 before moving to Anchorage, AK as a CDC public health fellow and subsequently working for several years as a hospitalist at the Alaska Native Medical Center. On returning to Minnesota in 2017, he was excited to become reinvolved with PNHP-MN.


Raina Young, MD

Dr. Raina Young has been a family physician with Health Partners doing the full spectrum of family medicine, including delivering babies, since she finished her residency training in Duluth in 2002. She was the clinical medical director for two clinics for almost 10 years. She grew up in a medical family in Iowa with a family physician dad and an RN/Health Educator mom. Her sisters are also in healthcare and many family discussions center around frustrations, barriers, and excessive costs with our current system. She continues to witness increasing stress levels among her colleagues, nurses, clinic staff and patients that is not sustainable. Instead of just continuing to complain about our current situation she decided it was time to get more involved in the fight for a single payer system.


Jen Crawford, Executive Director

Jen joined PNHP-MN in 2020 as our Administrative Coordinator. Jen’s passion for the Single Payer movement stems from seeing multiple family members struggle to understand and pay for their healthcare. She considers herself a part of the “Underinsured Generation” and is dedicated to changing the healthcare system in America for her son’s generation. Jen is proud to support the Board and members of the PNHP-MN organization.