Jaime R. Torres, DPM, MS

Founder & National Coordinator
Latinos for National Health Insurance

Born and raised in Ciales, Puerto Rico, Dr. Jaime Torres attended Fordham University and later the New York College of Podiatric Medicine. After completing a surgical residency on foot surgery at Coney Island Hospital, NY, he began working at Coler-Goldwater Specialty Hospital where he is now associate director of Consultative Services.   He is the founder and national coordinator of the coalition, Latinos For National Health Insurance.

In 2000, he was selected to be on the Advisory Board of the National Hispanic Medical Association (NHMA), and is the NHMA’s representative for the National Diabetes Education Program (NDEP), a program sponsored by the NIH and CDC.  He is currently the vice-chair of the Hispanic/Latino Work Group of the NDEP, and has helped create bilingual health campaigns for people with diabetes. 

Torres is also an associate at the Aesthetic Realism Foundation in New York City, a nonprofit education founded by the great philosopher, poet and historian Eli Siegel in 1941. It was Siegel who showed that the central question in ethics is “What does a person deserve by being a person?” and in Torres’ opinion, that is the question that every policy maker involved in health care should be discussing.  This is the basis of the articles he has written which have been printed across the nation in Spanish and English. What he is learning from this education about ethics has been invaluable to him, personally and professionally.  It is what has impelled him to work for a universal health plan — true to the democratic principles — where all people are covered from birth. He is a co-author of the book "Aesthetic Realism and the Answer to Racism", and has given anti-racism workshops at Harvard University and Brooklyn College.