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Saturday, October 11, 2014

Where is our Surgeon General?

The Washington Post posed the question "Does it matter that we don’t have a surgeon general in place right now?" and did not come up with a definitive answer. Kyrstal Ball and Anne Thompson of MSNBC considered the matter in an opinion piece and concluded that a partisan, political appointee was just what the doctor ordered. They quoted former Surgeon General Richard Carmona to make that point. “For well over a century, the American public and the world has come to rely on the unbiased apolitical and scientifically driven information generated by the United States Surgeon General,” Carmona said. “In an era of hyper partisanship and general distrust of government, a highly qualified and experienced Surgeon General is needed now more than ever.”
Then Obama should have nominated a highly qualified and experienced doctor instead of the partisan hack he tried to pawn off on us. Dr. Vivek Murthy whose confirmation has been awaiting a Senate vote since his nomination in November of 2013 has never been anyone's doctor. He has never worked in private practice and is immune to the problems that bedevil ordinary doctors such as malpractice lawsuits, 68,000 new medical billing codes mandated as per Obamacare and patients' health insurance coverage. He would be a perfect fit for a staff physician in any VA hospital.
What he lacks in competence Murthy makes up for in partisanship. He co-chaired the advocacy group Doctors for Obama during the 2008 presidential campaign. Shortly after the inauguration in 2009, this body of 16,000 physicians changed its moniker to Doctors for America, an organization with the stated goal of improving health-care access.
He set himself up for a hard fight for his confirmation with such Twitter goodies as “Tired of politicians playing politics w/ guns b/c they’re scared of NRA. Guns are a health care issue.”
The GOP is not holding up his nomination. Mitch McConnell is salivating like a basset to bring this vote to the floor. That would be the kiss of death for Senators Begich, Hagan, Pryor, and Udall who have lost their enthusiasm for "playing politics w/ guns", Why? "b/c they’re scared of NRA".
If confirmed Murthy would make a great playmate for Michelle Obama. Together they could remind the public via Twitter that childhood obesity not Ebola is the nation's foremost public health crisis. They could grow healthy vegetables on the White House lawn while making sure the Secret Service and their hooker girlfriends didn't eat all the tomatoes. They would see to it that the nation's schools were stocked with condoms and clean needles and that Latin American emigres embraced the trans gendered at least figuratively. It would be more like Disney World than Julia Pierson could have ever dreamed.
Now is the time for senate Republicans to demand a vote for Murthy. They should tell Obama if he likes his doctor he can keep him. All it takes is the political will.

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