The curious thing about healthcare is that very few politicians actually understand it, despite how much they talk about it. They spout out convenient talking points, but it’s never from a position of understanding. It’s always from the perspective of political convenience. Whatever’s good for the politician at the moment is the position taken.
The problem is that politicians often find themselves stuck when they play this game. It’s a double edged sword – as effective as it’s self-destructive. For example, it’s politically convenient to blame mounting overdoses on illicit fentanyl coming into America from outside sources, namely China via Mexico. So when you make that position, you’re now bound to the ramifications that come with it.
This is why so many politicians, on both sides of the political spectrum, see immigration as such a threat to the company. Illegal fentanyl is crossing the border. It must come from illegal immigrants. Therefore immigration is a problem. Never mind that most of the fentanyl comes through legal crossings. Never mind the immense epidemic of mental health in this country. No, we oversimplify drug abuse from a mental health problem to a supply side issue of drug border crossings and play up all the talking points that come with that hopelessly erroneous stance.
Another example is abortion and the moment at which life is conceived. Those vehemently against abortions fight to claim anything is viable life so they can minimize when and how abortions are legally permissible. Never mind the biology of conception, the point at which a fertilized egg develops cellular specialization and forms the basis of an embryo. No, anything that’s remotely involved in the process of life and conception is considered fair territory.
That’s how you get the Alabama Supreme Court ruling that unfertilized embryos are human adults with all the rights commensurate with any American citizen. It sparked immense outrage among those who support in vitro fertilization, particularly since in vitro fertilization uses unfertilized eggs to produce children – which is the diametric opposite of abortion, which terminates the embryological development of a fertilized embryo.
This is what happens when we oversimplify healthcare into convenient health policy. We get stuck in untenable positions. We correlate things that have nothing to do with each other. And, most egregiously, we harm vulnerable patients who are caught in the crossroads of insidiously contrived political agendas.
In vitro fertilization has nothing to do with abortion aside from sharing similar anatomical space. But it’s that poorly developed understanding – that yes, since they share similar anatomical space and have something to do with embryos – that lead to political and judicial decisions that adhere to some purported agenda.
We’re anti-abortion, so anything that sounds remotely aligned with that position is my position. We’re against drug abuse and want to restrict access to any illicit substance, so anything that aligns with that position, rightfully or wrongfully, is my position.
We don’t actually solve anything this way. In fact, we make things worse because we get caught up in the mental gymnastics of supporting things that don’t make sense clinically, but seem to relate at a high-level when it comes to convenient talking points.
Unfortunately, that’s been par for the course for politicians looking to score votes by adopting healthcare into the never-ending culture wars. Who needs to know clinical nuance when you can just say something that sounds slick and catchy?
It sounds flagrant when framed in such a way. Yet, this is exactly how health policy is positioned at the ballot. It’s not the issues themselves that drive voter turnout. It’s the overly simplified posturing of the issues that drive voter turnout.
