The presidential elections and GME
Over the weekend, I followed an interesting conversation stream on our medicine listserve. What began as an innocent post erupted into a major political discussion complete with admonitions about keeping politics out of educational forums.
With presidential elections on the horizon, we’re clearly entering a period of heightened awareness and interest in politics. Regardless of one’s particular bent in either direction, it is always an educational exercise to examine political candidates’ health care platforms.
We recently held a lunch conference on the topic. One of our health policy faculty presented a comparison of the Republican and Democrat platforms. As a noted author on health policy, she also shared her opinions about the real underlying issues that we face in health care. Fascinating stuff!
The key to making an informed decision is being well versed on the topic. Finding an unbiased comparison of each party’s position is challenging, but there are a number of Web sites with information about where candidates stand on hot button health issues.
You can start out by looking at each candidate individually. Each candidate maintains their own Web sites complete with a whole page dedicated to health care issues. Read about Senator John McCain’s and Senator Barack Obama’s health care plans.
Also, check out some of the information on the American Academy of Family Physicians and WebMd Web sites. You can also check out the AMA’s presidential elections page.
The Kaiser Family Foundation also has a neat tool that breaks down the candidate’s position.
I’m curious, what health care (and specially GME-related) issues are you paying close attention to this election year?
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Diane Farineau
Diane W. Farineau is the director of administration for graduate medical educational and faculty affairs at the University of Virginia Health System in the Department of Medicine.
Diane has written 35 posts.
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