Wesley Smith of the Discovery Institute sounds off on a proposal in the pages of National Review:
They want to politicize everything! Now, in the name of promoting “health,” doctors are urged to engage their patients about politics.
At least, that’s the gist of a column in the New York Times by Bellevue Hospital physician and NYU Medical School professor Danielle Ofri, who argues that since part of a doctor’s work entails helping patients live healthy lifestyles, physicians should therefore engage their patients politically in the clinical setting to highlight policies (liberal, of course) that she sees as germane to that effort. …
Ofri wants hospitals to become centers of voter registration:
When patients are admitted to the hospital, they are asked about their tobacco use and their flu shots, their employment status and their religious affiliation. Why not ask if they are registered to vote? Just as hospitals and clinics help the uninsured obtain coverage, they should also help eligible voters register.
Is she kidding? The last thing sick people need while being admitted to a hospital is a nurse or clerk trying to get out the vote.
No. I don’t want to be harangued by my doctor about politics during a physical. I don’t want my doctor asking me if I have guns or preaching to me about firearms policy (as some have urged they do). I don’t want to hear my doctor pontificating about the Affordable Care Act or what our public policy should be about the opioid epidemic–all of which would happen inevitably once politics entered the exam or treatment room.
Written in the typical emotion-invoking style of the right-wing, with a complete lack of analysis, it’s all about his irritation. But Kevin Drum agrees with him:
It’s a bad idea. But the reason it’s a bad idea is not because it annoys Kevin Drum or Wesley Smith. The reason is twofold:
- If doctors are increasingly viewed as political actors, it will affect their authority on genuinely medical issues. If your doctor insists that you should get out and vote to save Obamacare, for example, what are you going to think when she also insists that you should get the full course of vaccines for your new baby?
- Even bartenders are smart enough not to engage customers who are ritually complaining about whatever they’re annoyed about. You’re not going to agree with everyone, so a substantive response just risks pissing a lot of people off. That’s dangerous for folks who are drowning their sorrows in alcohol, and probably also dangerous in the inevitably stressful environment of an exam room. Starting fights is a bad thing.
Plus, I suppose that annoying Kevin Drum and Wesley Smith really is also a good reason to avoid this. I’m never all that thrilled to see a doctor, and if I knew I was going to have to put up with even more than just the usual crap about eating better and losing weight (thanks for the tip, doc!), I’d probably be even less likely to see my doctor. That could end up badly. Alternatively, I could make inquiries and choose my doctor on the basis of her political views, but I’m going to guess that this would end badly too.
And it boils down to fuzzy thinking and personal irritation. OK, so Kevin does have a point.
So let’s talk about the duty of doctors, and that’s to encourage wellness. Whether that’s diagnosing disease and prescribing courses of treatment or evaluating the overall health of the human in front of them, that’s the duty they’ve taken on.
On first glance, it may seem like encouraging voting, even in a non-partisan style, might be part of a healthful lifestyle, since it could lead to a better health system, but the problem is that we don’t vote on singular policy proposals and implementations, but rather on collections of same (once upon a time they were called planks in the party platform). Let’s look at history to understand how societal evolution has shaped the role of physicians.
The traditional mode of health care revolves around prescriptions and treatments, with lifestyle changes coming in a little later. These are moderately easy to categorize as mostly non-political choices, medical necessities without which we’re unlikely to heal quickly or at all, although sometimes spontaneous cures of unknown source do occur. When these choices are politicized, usually for quasi-religious reasons (think of Christian Scientists refusing blood transfusions), they are more or less successfully labeled religious kooks for their strongly held views. Given that they often die because of these views, the situation tends to be self-correcting.
However, Dr. Ofri’s proposal strikes me as straying off the golf course into the alligator-infested swamp.
- As I noted before, we don’t vote on single issues for the most part, and if we do, we’re mostly idiots, whether it’s abortion or gun control or whatever. I issue a limited waiver if you’re voting against Republicans this time around because of the current infestation of idiocy in their party, as I myself have advocated that position.
- This is not the direct treatment of anything but the financial situation of the patient, and that single vote does nothing. Votes are interesting things, for I contend they are the most important possession of a citizen, yet they’re damn near worthless in use. A doctor who encourages her patient to vote, or all 330 of them to vote, has wasted her time: the numbers required to accomplish anything are in the millions, and not all of them will vote the way you want them to vote. See (1).
- Now you’ve stressed your patients unnecessarily. And if they’re already ill, that’s definitely not a good thing to do.
So in the end, I’m in the same boat as Smith & Drum, but I lack the pulsing forehead artery and lack of coherent thought of Smith, and Drum just seems a bit dreamy.
