With Nominee, Obama Presses Ahead on Health Care/New York Times Editorial: The Nation’s ‘Top Doctor’

With Nominee, Obama Presses Ahead on Health Care
By William Branigin and Michael D. Shear
Copyright by The Washington Post
Monday, July 13, 2009; 3:23 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/13/AR2009071301817.html?hpid=topnews


President Obama served notice today that his administration will forge ahead with a plan to overhaul the nation's health-care system despite what he described as mounting criticism, and he introduced his nominee for surgeon general, Regina Benjamin, as someone who "understands the urgency" of health-care reform.

In a ceremony in the White House Rose Garden to present Benjamin as his choice to become the top U.S. public health official, Obama delivered a forceful defense of his health-care plan and derided the "small thinking" that he said has sidetracked such efforts in the past. He attempted to answer critics by arguing that the plan "will not add to our deficit over the next decade and eventually will help lower our deficit by slowing the skyrocketing costs of Medicare and Medicaid."

Saying that "health-care reform must be done," Obama denounced critics of the plan as representing the "same Washington thinking that has ignored big challenges and put off tough decisions for decades," adding that it was "precisely that kind of small thinking" that has led to the nation's current health care predicament.

"The status quo on health care is no longer an option for the United States of America," Obama said. He warned that doing nothing would "leave our children a legacy of debt" that ultimately would bankrupt families and businesses and would "crush our government."

Referring to his trip last week to Italy, Russia and Ghana, Obama said, "So I just want to put everybody on notice, because there was a lot of chatter during the week that I was gone: We are going to get this done. Inaction is not an option."

He added: "And for those naysayers and cynics who think that this is not going to happen, don't bet against us. We are going to make this thing happen because the American people desperately need it."

He acknowledged that Americans are "a little nervous and a little scared" about overhauling the health-care system. "You know, the muscles in this town to bring about big changes are a little atrophied, but we're whipping folks back into shape," he said. "We are going to get this done."

Benjamin, a family physician from Alabama who emerged as his nominee for surgeon general, "understands the urgency of meeting this challenge in a personal and powerful way," Obama said. If confirmed by the Senate, she would fill a key public health post ahead of an expected surge this fall in the swine flu strain known as H1N1.

Benjamin told the gathering that "public health issues are very personal to me," because her immediate family died of what she described as "preventable diseases": her father of diabetes and hypertension, her mother of lung cancer and her older brother and only sibling of "HIV-related illness" at age 44.

"While I cannot change my family's past, I can be a voice in the movement to improve our nation's health care," Benjamin said.

"My hope, if confirmed as surgeon general, is to be America's doctor, America's family physician," she said. "I want to ensure that no one -- no one -- falls through the cracks as we improve our health-care system."

Benjamin gained renown for founding the Bayou La Batre Rural Health Clinic in Alabama in 1990 and rebuilding it after it was repeatedly destroyed in a series of disasters, including Hurricane George in 1998, Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and a fire after that.

Benjamin also was the first black woman to head the State of Alabama Medical Association and was associate dean for rural health at the University of South Alabama's College of Medicine.

The president's first choice to be surgeon general, CNN's Sanjay Gupta, pulled out of the running in March, saying he did not want to give up his practice as a neurosurgeon or spend long periods away from his family.

Gupta had initially said he was attracted to the position because of the ability to use his high-profile reputation to increase awareness of public health and to push health-care reform through the Congress.
http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
Since then, the administration has been without a top public health official, even as swine flu has spread across the United States and become an international pandemic.




New York Times Editorial: The Nation’s ‘Top Doctor’
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: July 14, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/15/opinion/15wed3.html?th&emc=th


President Obama’s nominee for surgeon general, Dr. Regina M. Benjamin, is a woman of astonishing grit, selflessness and competence. If confirmed by the Senate, she would bring a perspective solidly rooted in the difficult reality so many Americans confront as they search for adequate, affordable health care.

Dr. Benjamin practices family medicine in a poor shrimp-fishing village on the coast of Alabama. She founded a clinic to serve a community of poor whites, blacks and Asians. She has rebuilt it three times (after two hurricanes and a fire) by mortgaging her house, digging into savings and raising donations.

She frequently pays for medicines out of her own pocket and is only sporadically paid by the financially shaky clinic, which currently owes her more than $300,000. Last year, the MacArthur Foundation honored her with one of its “genius” awards for her “compassionate and effective medical care.” President Obama was right to extol her as representing “what’s best about health care in America: doctors and nurses who give and care and sacrifice for the sake of their patients.”

Dr. Benjamin in 1995 became the youngest doctor, and first black woman, elected to the American Medical Association’s board of trustees, and she served in 2002 and 2003 as president of the state medical society in Alabama. She is little known in Washington, however, and will have to work to master the capital’s ways.

Despite its high-sounding title, the surgeon general is actually a mid-level federal health official whose primary powers are hortatory and educational. Some past surgeons general have reshaped thinking about the dangers of smoking and the urgency to combat AIDS, but many have disappeared into the bureaucracy.

Dr. Benjamin has said that she wants to act as a voice for patients and make sure that no one falls through the cracks as health care reform proceeds. And she has said she wants to focus on preventing disease, a crucial component of health care reform. To do all that, the soft-spoken, unassuming family doctor will also have to master the bully pulpit. But judging from her history, we are betting on her.