Countering The Demented Ravings Of Doctors Like Paul Broun And Phil Gingrey, Georgia Sociopaths

Lee Rogers, surgeon, progressive

This morning's NY Times looked at medical doctors in Congress-- although the post is mostly a puff piece about a naive right-wing pediatric neurosurgeon in Oregon who's running against Jeff Merkley. The Senate has 3 doctors now (Coburn, Barrasso and the uncertified ophthalmologist Rand Paul) and there are 17 in the House (many of whom are certifiably-- and horrifyingly-- insane, like Tennessee Republican, Scott DesJarlais, who is best known for sedating his patients with heavy drugs to have sex with them, and a couple of whacked out Georgia extremists, the embryology is straight from the pit of hell guy Paul Broun and the Todd Akin was right about rapes guy Phil Gingrey). "A heightened political awareness," wrote Jeremy Peters, "and a healthy self-regard that they could do a better job, are drawing a surprisingly large number [of doctors] to the power of elective office… With a few exceptions, these physician legislators and candidates-- there are three dozen of them-- are much alike: deeply conservative, mostly male, and practicing in the specialty fields in which costs and pay have soared in recent years."

No mention of this year's most accomplished and prominent physician running, Simi Valley, California podiatric surgeon, Lee Rogers. Alan Grayson: "I respect Lee Rogers, because he is the doctor who founded and directed the Amputation Prevention Center, and reduced amputations by 72%… I know that we need a progressive doctor like Lee Rogers in Congress, to help… counter the demented ravings of Drs. Paul Broun (R-Paleolithic), Scott DesJarlais (R-Patient Dating), Michael Burgess (R-Fetal Wanking) and Larry Bucshon (R-Guns)."

Why are so many physicians willing to trade their white coats-- not to mention the autonomy, respect and high salary-- for a job that can be so frustrating that it is now sending one veteran politician after another into retirement?

“Medicine has so changed, and it’s not necessarily the Affordable Care Act,” said Senator Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma, who had a family medical practice before being elected to the House and later to the Senate.

The senator said today’s doctors have watched the profession undergo tremendous realignments that are shifting doctors’ responsibilities away from patient care, changes they attribute to the government’s inefficacy. And many of them believe they can reverse the course.

“They’re just frustrated,” he said. “They practiced medicine when you could actually spend time with a patient, spend time to listen to them, figure out what’s wrong with them.”

The House’s only psychiatrist, Representative Jim McDermott, Democrat of Washington, offered a more Freudian explanation: the desire for control.

“They want to have their hands right there on the handle so they can pull it one way or another,” he said.

As for the reason so few of them are liberal-- out of the 17 medical doctors in the House, Representative McDermott is one of only four who are Democrats-- he said he believed that politically conservative physicians were more likely to chafe at the direction of changes in health care, with greater oversight by the government and a more regulated role for the private sector. “It’s a fundamental debate about what is in the public good,” he said.

You can help put a doctor in the House-- a good one, who was campaigning to fix the mistakes in Obamacare before it even passed-- by lending a hand in electing Lee Rogers. If you'd like to make a contribution, no matter how small, you can do it at this link.