Wednesday, September 17, 2008
a cancer on the presidency
There's probably a good argument against full release of medical records for presidential candidates under normal circumstances, i.e., where the candidate in question does not most closely resemble a necktie holding together a melting pile of mash potatoes and margarine. But where the candidate has already suffered two distinct boughts of malignant melanoma and Tracy Flick's slack-jawed older sister would be the stand-in president in the event of McCain's demise, I think the press and public should demand to see McCain's records without restriction, i.e., none of this in camera, no electronic equipment, three-hour viewing bullshit. How could you vote for the guy without first having reasonable assurances that he's going to make it to the White House come January 2009 without Sarah Palin having to carry him over the oval office threshold? See here for interesting background.
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I wonder if some operative called for this, the McCain camp would fire back "Hypocrite! Hypocrite!". After all, a central plank of the (quasi) universal health care reform is that patients should not be "discriminated against" by facing higher health costs and/or total exile from the system because they unhealthy. Even the bulk of the GOP in congress recently voted overwhelmingly to outlaw "discrimination" on the basis of the results of genetic testing. Of course, this one surprised me, given the ease with which GOP supports the first kind of discrimination (in health care pricing).
But what do I know, really.
I think that's a good point. However, since we're not talking about health care coverage here and instead talking about fitness for duty, it's pretty easy to argue that, say, since even a private enlisting in the armed forces must undergo a full physical, so too should the commander-in-chief of the armed forces. While it's true that this elides the central issue of disclosure (the enlistee's medical records are not released to the public but are presumably covered by all applicable HIPPA regs), perhaps a suitable compromise would be to have a board of truly independent physicians evaluate the physical (and mental, if possible) health of the presidential contenders and give a thumbs up or down as a result. This sort of thing would have to be voluntary, of course, as requiring such an evaluation would likely be unconstitutional. Instead, it could be one of those things that's more or less a de facto requirement of office, like releasing one's tax returns for the past several years; doing so is not required, but you'd be pilloried if you refused to do so.
Yeah, but what would that have meant for Jed Bartlett, eh? Or Bruce Bartlett for that matter.
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