Doctors Pursue Political Office
By: John Fritze, USA TODAY
Doctors pursue House, Senate seats - USATODAY.com
WASHINGTON — In an election year dominated by
health care, dozens of candidates for Congress have
a catchy campaign slogan at their disposal: Send a
doctor to the House.
Forty-seven physicians — 41 Republicans and six
Democrats — are running for the House or Senate
this year, three times the number of doctors serving
in Congress today, according to a USA TODAY
review.
An influx of doctors to Congress could alter the
landscape for future debates over Medicare and
rising insurance premiums months after lawmakers
approved President Obama's 10-year, $938 billion
health care law.
Physician candidates start with at least one political
advantage: voter confidence. A Gallup Poll in March
found 77% of Americans trust doctors to do "the
right thing" on health policy, compared with 32% for
Republican leaders and 49% for Obama.
"Physicians just have a different mind-set toward
problem solving," said Larry Bucshon, a Republican
heart surgeon running for a House seat in Indiana.
"It's very good training for being a congressman."
Most of the candidates are touting their profession
on the campaign trail. Nan Hayworth, a Republican
running for a New York House seat, posts a copy of
her medical degree on her website. Ami Bera, a
Democratic House candidate from California, told
supporters, "My whole adult life has been given to
the task of caring for others."
"We're trained as physicians to lead by listening,"
said Bera, who supports the new health care law but
worries it won't do enough to lower costs.
Zach Knowling, a spokesman for state Rep. Trent
Van Haaften, a Democrat running against Bucshon,
said his opponent "continues to side with big
insurance companies," despite his background. Van
Haaften is a former prosecutor.
The political arm of the American Medical
Association doesn't track how many doctors run in
primaries but reports that 30 physicians ran in the
2008 general election compared with 22 in 2006.
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