Why aren't patients a constituency?

For decades, patient advocacy has built communities around cancer, rare disease, diabetes, caregiving, chronic illness, and just about every other corner of American healthcare.

But a community and a constituency are not the same thing.

We know patients share experiences. We know the healthcare system gives millions of Americans remarkably similar reasons to lose their minds. What we don’t know is whether identifying as a patient actually predicts anything about what people care about, how they act, or the choices they make as citizens.

That’s the question behind We The Patients.

Instead of assuming a patient constituency exists, we’re asking something much simpler: Can we measure it?

Does patient identity cross diagnosis, geography, insurance status, income, age, and party? Does it predict civic attitudes or behavior? And if there is a signal, what could become possible because it exists?

Maybe the answer is yes. Maybe it’s no. Maybe it’s somewhere in between.

Everyone has a guess.

Nobody has the numbers.

Yet.