Tag: flint michigan

They want to politicize everything! Now, in the name of promoting “health,” doctors are urged to engage their patients about politics. A Prescription for Politics From “Doctors Should Tell Their Patients to Vote” (my emphasis): Suddenly, like Dr. Virchow [a 19th-century German doctor who wrote a report castigating public policies he believed responsible for a typhus epidemic], we are recognizing that our purview extends to the entire structure of our society and that politics is, as he put it, “nothing else but medicine on a large scale.” Political decisions that affect insurance coverage, access to medical care, housing, minimum wage, immigration law, water sources — just to name a few examples — exert medical effects that are comparable with those of major diseases. Dr. Virchow’s words from 170 years ago about the creep of religion into state affairs, the outsize power of the wealthy and the autocratic impulses of government feel unsettlingly contemporary. But should that extend to their interactions with individual patients in the clinical setting? Apparently so: So is it time for doctors to pull out our prescription pads and, like Dr. Virchow, start prescribing democracy? Considering the repeated examples she gives of the political issues doctors should address with patients — and the apparent approach she believes they should promote — does anyone believe her disclaimer that “viewpoints” would not be advocated in the exam room? Just as hospitals and clinics help the uninsured obtain coverage, they should also help eligible voters register. The last thing sick people need while being admitted to a hospital is a nurse or clerk trying to get out the vote. 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.

Good Friday morning. Here are some of the stories making news in Washington and politics today. • Scrambling to protect their House majority ahead of the midterms, Republicans are abandoning weaker candidates and building a firewall around races they deem winnable. • “We don’t like it,” Mr. Trump said in an interview with Fox & Friends of the suspicion that Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist, was lured to a Saudi Consulate in Turkey and killed. • Prices for the most popular type of health insurance under the Affordable Care Act will drop slightly next year in the federal marketplace, after several years of rapid increases. • More than 50,000 Georgia voter registrations were placed on a “pending” list ahead of the state’s election for governor. The Republican nominee, who is also the secretary of state, has denied accusations of intentional voter suppression. • “Our trauma is a talking point for their gubernatorial aspirations,” said Nayyirah Shariff, one of the many Flint, Mich., residents still contending with extreme daily challenges as the race for governor nears its end. • “They won’t do it without our approval,” Mr. Trump said on Wednesday about South Korea’s suggestion that it might ease some sanctions against North Korea. • Ahead of another round of sanctions on Iran, the Trump administration warned the world’s banks that Tehran might try to use duplicitous means to duck the sanctions and continue to fund terrorism.

Trymaine Lee talks to Flint residents about the charges that have been brought so far, including a manslaughter charge against the head of the Michigan health department. » Subscribe to MSNBC: http://on.msnbc.com/SubscribeTomsnbc About: MSNBC is the premier destination for in-depth…