Health care isn’t just motivating voters—it’s motivating Democratic physician-candidates – By Joan McCarter (dailykos.com) / Aug 27 2018
Here’s a pretty amazing demographic shift playing out right now in American politics: “Now, more than 50 percent of party-affiliated doctors are Democrats.” The field has opened up for people of color and women, and they’re changing things. They’re also running for office—specifically, the House of Representatives.
There are at least nine Democratic doctors running right now as first-time candidates in House races. Contrast that with 12 of the 14 current physicians in the House and Senate—Republicans. The sitting members aren’t just physicians. One-half of them practice in highly paid specialities like orthopedic surgery. The Democratic challengers have a much more expansive view of health care, coming “predominantly from specialties such as emergency medicine, pediatrics and internal medicine, though one is a radiologist.”
They’re taking the Hippocratic oath to the core, seeing the harm being done to the body politic by Republicans’ eight-year war on the Affordable Care Act. “It’s at a boiling point for many of these physicians,” says executive director of Doctors for America Jim Duffett. His group supports universal healthcare, as do all of the Democrats running for office this cycle. Michigan’s Dr. Rob Davidson was spurred to run by a confrontation with his representative, Republican Bill Huizenga, at a town meeting. “I told him about my patients,” Davidson said. “I see, every shift, some impact of not having adequate health care, not having dental insurance or a doctor at all.” Huizenga, a staunch Obamacare hater, failed to show any consideration at all to Davidson’s concerns, or to the uninsured people he was there to plead for. He says he’ll support Medicare for All in the House
Dr. Kyle Horton, a female internist running in North Carolina’s 7th Congressional District, wants both a public option for Obamacare and to lower the Medicare eligibility age to 50. Another woman, Dr. Hiral Tipirneni, an emergency physician in Arizona’s 8th Congressional District, supports allowing anyone to buy into Medicare.
It took eight years of Republican sabotage and Donald Trump to finally turn the country’s attitude on the Affordable Care Act around, and to appreciate what it’s done for health care. That’s why it has risen to the top of the list of issues people are concerned about this cycle, including these physician candidates.
This is great for 2018, but it’s even better for the future. Doctors in Congress have always been the voice of authority on health policy. Doctors in office who actually care about the health of all Americans will eventually get us to universal healthcare.
