November 29, 2024 • 21 mins
Dr. Rob Davidson returns to Woke AF Daily to discuss the need to restore faith in public health after years of attacks on our health care systems.
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Speaker 1 (00:11):
Good morning, Peepsen. Welcome to WIKF Daily with Meet Your
Girl Daniel Moody pre recorded from the Home Bunker, Folks.
On today's show, we chat again with doctor Rob Davidson,
who is an emergency room doctor in Michigan, and we
chat with him today with regard to RFK Junior and
(00:35):
the potential that a conspiracy theorist, an anti vaxxer, a
lunatic could be in charge of public health for over
three hundred and thirty million Americans. And doctor Davidson walks
us through all of the ways in which this is
incredibly dangerous, reminds us of what happened in Samoa with
(00:59):
a measle outbreak that killed over eighty people, largely children,
after RFK Junior talked about anti vaccines there and you
could literally trace the deaths back to him and is
anti vaccine And you know, here we talk about what
will it take to restore faith in public health that
(01:21):
was broken by Donald Trump during COVID and has yet
to recover. What he reminds us is that vaccines helped
and has helped millions upon millions of people, whether it
be polio, whether it be measles, malaria, and has the
potential to eradicate cervical cancer in terms of HPV. And
(01:44):
so you know, we are at a time where the
lunatics are going to run the asylum and it isn't
just about tuning out when their hands are literally going
to be everywhere in our water, in our food, in
our medicine, and what is that going to mean for
our health moving forward? I get into this and more
(02:07):
with doctor Rob Davidson, Folks, I am very happy to
welcome back to f A doctor Rob Davidson, who is
a er doctor in Michigan, East Michigan and the executive
director of the Committee to Protect Healthcare. Doctor Davidson, you
joined us a couple of weeks back when we still
(02:29):
had hope. How about three years three weeks ago and
a lot has happened, And now we are in the
throes of Donald Trump's second regime taking shape. And one
of the most troubling I mean, they're all troubling, but
one of the most troubling picks that I have seen
(02:51):
thus far for his cabinet is that of RFK Junior
to head up HHS. RFK Junior has been known for
his wild conspiracy theories, has been known to believe that
fluoride in water causes autism and all sorts of odd things.
(03:13):
Just recently, I think what has been released this week
is that heroin has helped him become a better student
and retain more information. Walk us through how in jeopardy
our public health is with this incoming administration.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
First, thanks again, it's good to talk with you again
after three weeks and a lot hasn't back happened? Boy,
I think with this incoming administration, what we've seen is
there they It feels like he and they exist more
to kind of shock the system than they do to
actually provide benefit to people. To whoever voted for him
and why they voted for him. People are figuring that
(03:54):
out right exactly which groups and which people and why
they did. But no matter what, people who vote for
whomever they vote for are doing it because they think
that person being in that particular office are going to
somehow benefit the lives of themselves, their families, their community,
their country, what have you. And so in picking someone
like our Ka Junior, and you know, the conspiracy theories
(04:15):
are concerned his anti vaccine views, his record of going
into Samoa in twenty eighteen promoting anti Vat's views against
MMR and then seeing an outbreak of measles happen in
that small island, killing eighty three people, mostly children, making
four thousand people very sick. Yeah, and you can draw
(04:36):
a direct line to OURFK Junior and his organization promoting that.
You know, when you have someone like that coming in,
a lot of the picks are concerning. And you said
it right, that's true. As a physician and as someone
who leads a physician organization who are advocating for our patients,
this is the one that we care about a lot,
you know, both personally professionally, and feel like we can
(04:58):
speak to with some degree of authority and have an
impact on keeping this guy out of there. I think
we turned back the clock right before science, right before
we believed in basic science. And you know, the history
of healthcare in the world is certainly this country. As
we learn new information, we change how we practice. I mean,
(05:18):
there are things that I learned in medical school that
are absolutely proven to be not true today. There are
things that I do and that I've learned today that
I'm sure in twenty thirty years we'll look back and
say why we were a little off, you know, hopefully
not a lot off, but certainly off in those views.
Before vaccines, people died of measles. Right before vaccines, I
(05:39):
think prevented ten million cases of paralysis with the polio vaccine.
Before polio vaccine, kids were in iron lungs because their
diaphragms were paralyzed and they couldn't breathe. You know, before vaccines,
there were entire strains of meningitis that people who taught
me in the nineties talked about that because of the
specific vaccine hib hemophlos influenza in the eighties, we got
(06:04):
rid of it. I've never seen it, and we are
so grateful for that reality. Right, particularly children, but and adults.
Right because of vaccines, we could eliminate cervical cancer and women.
Right the HPV vaccine, if we had wide uptake, we
could totally eliminate a form of cancer. Like it's you've
never even imagined this kind of stuff thirty years ago,
(06:26):
forty years ago, but it's true. And we got a
guy coming in who wants to turn back to clock,
you know, to the fifties and sixties and make us
all in our communities to deal with these diseases and
see people die from them unnecessarily, But as as physicians
and clinicians watch people suffer when we know it could
have been different, it's terrifying.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
I kind of want to take us back to COVID
for a moment when Donald Trump was in office the
first time and the global health pandemic hits, and that
is when his administration put public health on trial. And
instead of using his platform to urge people in the
(07:14):
United States to wear a mask, to urge people to
wash your hands and do basic things, as scientists and
doctors and researchers, we're trying to figure out what is
this thing? What is COVID, how is it spreading? How
is it harming so many people? We watched them turn
the field of medicine and health into a political hot potato,
(07:40):
so much so that post the spikes of COVID that
we had experienced over the last four years, that we
have seen vaccine use be depressed, not just for COVID
but overall vaccine. So, as you were watching doctor Davidson
that unfold over his term, did you think that he
(08:03):
was planting the seeds for what would then blossom dangerously
across this country? Did you think that a Joe Biden
presidency and administration was going to be able to kind
of right size our perception and our understanding of public health.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
I mean, I think the danger and sort of the
culture personality surrounding Trump is a certain group of people,
whatever that percent is, forty thirty percent, some number of
people in this country will just take what he says
and believe it and bring it in believe it and
nothing else could ever be true despite any fact that
was presented. That's I mean, that's tough, right, how do
(08:43):
you go against that? But then, particularly with COVID, even
people who maybe weren't on board with Trump and a
lot of the things he was doing, thought he was unfit,
you know, concerned about a lot of aspects. They were
said of COVID. Right, COVID was disruptive to people's lives,
to our kids education, to people's work lives, to people's
(09:05):
ability to earn money, COVID taking lives of family members.
People were just at some point just over it. Now,
it's hard to prove a counter narrative, But had someone
other than Trump and President COVID almost certainly wouldn't have
been as bad. The economy almost certainly wouldn't have been
as bad. I mean, he screwed up in epic proportions,
(09:25):
and part of his lack of response and his pushing
back against masking his massive rallies during the summer and
fall of twenty twenty, when COVID was just a running rampant,
getting more people sick, causing deaths. Right. I mean, Herman
Kane died after going to I think it was in Oklahoma,
going to a rally of his he got COVID and died.
(09:46):
I mean, Chris Christy recounts that Trump gave him COVID
when they're doing debate prep before he went into a
debate with a seventy seven year old former vice president
who was his opponent with COVID and didn't tell anyone,
and he almost he killed Chris Christie, right, some guy
who was previously supporting him. That happened, you know, over
and over and over at these big rallies, this disease spreading.
(10:08):
But the reality is the big majority of people who
maybe weren't on board with Trump overall, were just sick
of COVID, and so if they found something or someone
out there who could give them information to say that
they weren't a bad person for all gathering in groups
with their friends and family, right or for opening their
business because they simply needed to be able to earn
a living. And they found that in Trump, or in
(10:31):
RFK Junior, or in doctor Oz or any of these
other people that he's putting into the public health apparatus.
People clung to that, right. They were looking for someone
to tell them, you really don't need to stay away
from people. You really can get together at Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Don't You'll be fine this it's the flu, it's the cold,
it's no big deal. None of that was true, but
(10:53):
they wanted to hear it. They were ready to hear it.
And I think that is to me, the irreparable damage
that has been done is that those people kind of
got into those places. Then that began the distrust of
the system in general, and it primed a whole new
group of people for believing a sort of anti science
views of someone like our a junior that's going to
(11:15):
take a long time to sex right talking about it
with someone like you here, and this podcast is part
of it. Like people like me trying to go everywhere
we can to talk about to highlight the problem and
to reinforce the importance of science and fact based practice
of HealthShare and public health. I think that's how we
claw our way back.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
You know, one of the things that I've seen recently,
and I know that obviously you have seen all of
the headlines of mass exodus of doctors leaving Red states,
largely around abortion, but fleeing and turning certain states, these
red states into health deserts. And I'm wondering, as again
(11:58):
this administration takes is it going to be possible do
you think for blue state governors to be able to
keep their constituents safe, Like if you have all of
these doctors that are leaving. Leaving is largely an economic
privilege when people are able to afford to be able
(12:20):
to leave. And these doctors are doing so because they
don't want to go to jail.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
Even besides that, they don't want to practice an environment
where they know they know what to do medically, but
they're not allowed to do that, even not with that,
even with vaccines, with other aspects of healthcare practicing in environments.
I mean, I practice in a state where Medicaid has
been expanded under the ACA, but there are still ten
states that happen, and that, to me, would be really
hard to practice in a place like that with people
(12:46):
who could otherwise afford healthcare if they just happen to
live in a different state, but they can't afford to
get insurance. Like the moral injury associate with that in
practicing medicine. There's a lot to that, and people go
into mesine for a lot of different reasons. But if
you ask everyone who you know first applied to med school,
what's the first answer to the first question when you
want to be a doctor, I would venture ninety ninety
(13:07):
five percent would say because I want to help people.
When an entire system is set up so you can't
help people, and it's a different state by state, and
it becomes more challenging when a new administration comes in
and puts up rules and tries to do things like
Medicaid blog brands, which will decrease a number of people
in Medicaid, which decrease the number of people with ACA plans,
which they did when he was last president, two millions
(13:29):
fewer people had insurance than have it now. That makes
it harder to do this job. It is genuinely a
moral injury, and you're right we have the economic privilege
to say I'm just going to step away, you know,
I'm going to do something else, and I'm going to
use my savings or what have you and try to
live a different life and not have to day by
day be exposed to this risk and that moral injury
(13:49):
of people being sick that don't have to be sick.
That's hard, and again that's something from which we have
to claw back, and I think we will. I think
we can, but it's going to just take a concerted
effort people talking about it and promoting truth wherever we can.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
And to that point, I wholeheartedly agree. And I wonder
about your thoughts with regard to places like New York
and California who have governors that are saying, you will
keep you safe, You'll be safe, you know this place,
it will be a haven, etc. To what extent do
you think that that is possible when the government, right,
(14:28):
the federal government is the largest institution that can help
or harm people at will.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
Yeah, I think it's possible to blunt the negative impact.
And don't forget my governor Gretchen whitmerher in Michigan. Yes,
you love her, and she is vowed to defend people's
rights and to help promote their health. So I think yeah,
they definitely can have a very significant impact on that.
State policies and state boards of health and even in
communities right, county health departments have a huge say in
(14:59):
what's of available right and spreading truth and good information.
It just having someone like Ourka, or having Donald Trump,
or having os and positions of power with a platform
with a megaphone just makes it harder. It just means
they're going to have to work harder to provide the
counter narratives of truths from what people are getting from
(15:20):
the administration and find the right channels of communication to
do that right, whether it be on podcasts like this
YouTube TikTok, you know, where people are consuming the information.
It just makes their job harder and I'm sure very frustrating,
But you know, these are people. That's why they're there
to help protect and defend the people of their state.
(15:41):
I have faith in them. I feel badly for people
in Florida, people in Texas. I really do my colleagues,
but just general citizen rido, mate just kind of can't
think about it every day. They just set their liver,
the lives and you know, take care of their families.
But they're they're being bombarded, you know, with people like
DeSantis out there kind of voice the same crazy use
(16:02):
as we're hearing from Trunk.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
What advice do you give to people right now, particularly
those who use the Affordable Care Act for their healthcare
who are at risk? I think, what is it? It's
over twenty million people, myself included as a self employed person,
who are at risk. What advice do you give to
people as this administration comes in?
Speaker 2 (16:28):
I think, no matter where you live, please please please
communicate to your elected officials in the federal government. You're
a member of Congress, your senator. You know, if you
happen to live in an area with a Republican member
of Congress, Republican senator, call in. Let their office know
how much you depend upon those and if they are
going to make changes, they have to make sure they
(16:48):
have something ready to replace whatever they think is not working.
Let's be real, it could all be better, right. Your
insurance is still expensive, I'm sure, and your cope and
doctorbles are still more than they should be. So if
they have ideas, I mean, we are you know, I
work to this organization the Committee to Protect Healthcare. We're
a non partisan organization. It just so happens. We haven't
(17:11):
yet found a Republican with policy proposals that actually are
going to help people more than more than what we've
got going. But if they come to the table with
something that generally is better, is cheaper, provides more access,
let's go like we are ready, We'll jump on board.
The problem is everything we've seen them do makes it
more expensive, that has less access, less coverage, and will
(17:34):
hurt more people. So I think it's really speaking up
and voicing that your support of what you have and
your need to have affordable health care to those people
in those positions to take the vote that could take
it away.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
Yeah, I agree, And I had told my listeners and followers,
you know, to book their doctor's appointments, to make sure
that they're up to date on their vaccines, to do
whatever seizures that maybe they had been putting off because
we don't know when and how it will be pulled away,
but that you know, it could very well be a
(18:09):
light switch moment where you know, tens of millions of
people wake up and don't have health care.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
I think that's smart advice. I don't think anyone could
argue with that advice. We don't know what the future holds,
but if we know what is happening in the present
and what we have, yeah, I mean, I think that's
a very good advice that I'm going to take to heart.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
And finally, doctor Davidson, again, we have but a couple
of months left until this takes shape, the fullness of
this administration comes into view. What is your advice to
young people that are going into the medical profession at
the same time that this administration is taking shape? What
(18:52):
do you say to those young people?
Speaker 2 (18:54):
I think too fold one, it is still a very
rewarding thing to be able to be a person in
your community that helps keep the community healthy, to help
take care of people and their families. So it is
still extremely rewarding and it's worthwhile. I think. The other
thing is we have agency. We have a voice through
organizations like ours or other organizations. Physician voices are critically important.
(19:17):
Right to speak out on behalf of our patients, whether
it before policies we believe in or against the policies
or the actions of Trump or anyone else who is
going to endanger our patients or our ability to help them,
and so do not just sit on your hands. I
mean it's hard. Early on, we've had people in organization
(19:38):
who've been threatened by employers, by big hospitals because we've
kind of been going after policies that the hospitals use
to make things more expensive. And you know, these folks
are like, I have a mortgageized student loans. I'm the
primary bread earner. I get it. I get it. But
I think if we want to have you know, the
system we have and we want to make it better,
we have to lift up our own voices. You know,
(19:59):
we have to it. It's as much as it might be
difficult for us, it's a lot easier for us than
this for a lot of our patients. You know, we
have that ability, and we have the economic security to
be able to do that, definitely more than a lot
of our patients too. And we have expertise, and we
for the most part have the trust of people who
were talking to And so make that a part of
(20:23):
how you practice medicine advocacy, using your voice and as
public the way it is you feel comfortable doing. I
think that's a new piece of medicine that I didn't
consider back in the nineties when I first got into
those and I think it's just become clear that we
have to be there, we have to have that piece
above the way we practice medicine.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
Yeah, doctor Davidson, thank you so much for making time
for WOKF Daily. Really appreciate your insights and your advice.
Speaker 2 (20:51):
Absolutely, I really enjoy talking with you, and I'm happy
to do it anytime.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
Absolutely, we'll have you back again soon.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
That is it.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
But for me today to hear friends on Woke af
as always power to the people and to all the
people power, get woke and stay woke as fuck.
Good morning, Peepsen. Welcome to WIKF Daily with Meet Your
Girl Daniel Moody pre recorded from the Home Bunker, Folks.
On today's show, we chat again with doctor Rob Davidson,
who is an emergency room doctor in Michigan, and we
chat with him today with regard to RFK Junior and
(00:35):
the potential that a conspiracy theorist, an anti vaxxer, a
lunatic could be in charge of public health for over
three hundred and thirty million Americans. And doctor Davidson walks
us through all of the ways in which this is
incredibly dangerous, reminds us of what happened in Samoa with
(00:59):
a measle outbreak that killed over eighty people, largely children,
after RFK Junior talked about anti vaccines there and you
could literally trace the deaths back to him and is
anti vaccine And you know, here we talk about what
will it take to restore faith in public health that
(01:21):
was broken by Donald Trump during COVID and has yet
to recover. What he reminds us is that vaccines helped
and has helped millions upon millions of people, whether it
be polio, whether it be measles, malaria, and has the
potential to eradicate cervical cancer in terms of HPV. And
(01:44):
so you know, we are at a time where the
lunatics are going to run the asylum and it isn't
just about tuning out when their hands are literally going
to be everywhere in our water, in our food, in
our medicine, and what is that going to mean for
our health moving forward? I get into this and more
(02:07):
with doctor Rob Davidson, Folks, I am very happy to
welcome back to f A doctor Rob Davidson, who is
a er doctor in Michigan, East Michigan and the executive
director of the Committee to Protect Healthcare. Doctor Davidson, you
joined us a couple of weeks back when we still
(02:29):
had hope. How about three years three weeks ago and
a lot has happened, And now we are in the
throes of Donald Trump's second regime taking shape. And one
of the most troubling I mean, they're all troubling, but
one of the most troubling picks that I have seen
(02:51):
thus far for his cabinet is that of RFK Junior
to head up HHS. RFK Junior has been known for
his wild conspiracy theories, has been known to believe that
fluoride in water causes autism and all sorts of odd things.
(03:13):
Just recently, I think what has been released this week
is that heroin has helped him become a better student
and retain more information. Walk us through how in jeopardy
our public health is with this incoming administration.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
First, thanks again, it's good to talk with you again
after three weeks and a lot hasn't back happened? Boy,
I think with this incoming administration, what we've seen is
there they It feels like he and they exist more
to kind of shock the system than they do to
actually provide benefit to people. To whoever voted for him
and why they voted for him. People are figuring that
(03:54):
out right exactly which groups and which people and why
they did. But no matter what, people who vote for
whomever they vote for are doing it because they think
that person being in that particular office are going to
somehow benefit the lives of themselves, their families, their community,
their country, what have you. And so in picking someone
like our Ka Junior, and you know, the conspiracy theories
(04:15):
are concerned his anti vaccine views, his record of going
into Samoa in twenty eighteen promoting anti Vat's views against
MMR and then seeing an outbreak of measles happen in
that small island, killing eighty three people, mostly children, making
four thousand people very sick. Yeah, and you can draw
(04:36):
a direct line to OURFK Junior and his organization promoting that.
You know, when you have someone like that coming in,
a lot of the picks are concerning. And you said
it right, that's true. As a physician and as someone
who leads a physician organization who are advocating for our patients,
this is the one that we care about a lot,
you know, both personally professionally, and feel like we can
(04:58):
speak to with some degree of authority and have an
impact on keeping this guy out of there. I think
we turned back the clock right before science, right before
we believed in basic science. And you know, the history
of healthcare in the world is certainly this country. As
we learn new information, we change how we practice. I mean,
(05:18):
there are things that I learned in medical school that
are absolutely proven to be not true today. There are
things that I do and that I've learned today that
I'm sure in twenty thirty years we'll look back and
say why we were a little off, you know, hopefully
not a lot off, but certainly off in those views.
Before vaccines, people died of measles. Right before vaccines, I
(05:39):
think prevented ten million cases of paralysis with the polio vaccine.
Before polio vaccine, kids were in iron lungs because their
diaphragms were paralyzed and they couldn't breathe. You know, before vaccines,
there were entire strains of meningitis that people who taught
me in the nineties talked about that because of the
specific vaccine hib hemophlos influenza in the eighties, we got
(06:04):
rid of it. I've never seen it, and we are
so grateful for that reality. Right, particularly children, but and adults.
Right because of vaccines, we could eliminate cervical cancer and women.
Right the HPV vaccine, if we had wide uptake, we
could totally eliminate a form of cancer. Like it's you've
never even imagined this kind of stuff thirty years ago,
(06:26):
forty years ago, but it's true. And we got a
guy coming in who wants to turn back to clock,
you know, to the fifties and sixties and make us
all in our communities to deal with these diseases and
see people die from them unnecessarily, But as as physicians
and clinicians watch people suffer when we know it could
have been different, it's terrifying.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
I kind of want to take us back to COVID
for a moment when Donald Trump was in office the
first time and the global health pandemic hits, and that
is when his administration put public health on trial. And
instead of using his platform to urge people in the
(07:14):
United States to wear a mask, to urge people to
wash your hands and do basic things, as scientists and
doctors and researchers, we're trying to figure out what is
this thing? What is COVID, how is it spreading? How
is it harming so many people? We watched them turn
the field of medicine and health into a political hot potato,
(07:40):
so much so that post the spikes of COVID that
we had experienced over the last four years, that we
have seen vaccine use be depressed, not just for COVID
but overall vaccine. So, as you were watching doctor Davidson
that unfold over his term, did you think that he
(08:03):
was planting the seeds for what would then blossom dangerously
across this country? Did you think that a Joe Biden
presidency and administration was going to be able to kind
of right size our perception and our understanding of public health.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
I mean, I think the danger and sort of the
culture personality surrounding Trump is a certain group of people,
whatever that percent is, forty thirty percent, some number of
people in this country will just take what he says
and believe it and bring it in believe it and
nothing else could ever be true despite any fact that
was presented. That's I mean, that's tough, right, how do
(08:43):
you go against that? But then, particularly with COVID, even
people who maybe weren't on board with Trump and a
lot of the things he was doing, thought he was unfit,
you know, concerned about a lot of aspects. They were
said of COVID. Right, COVID was disruptive to people's lives,
to our kids education, to people's work lives, to people's
(09:05):
ability to earn money, COVID taking lives of family members.
People were just at some point just over it. Now,
it's hard to prove a counter narrative, But had someone
other than Trump and President COVID almost certainly wouldn't have
been as bad. The economy almost certainly wouldn't have been
as bad. I mean, he screwed up in epic proportions,
(09:25):
and part of his lack of response and his pushing
back against masking his massive rallies during the summer and
fall of twenty twenty, when COVID was just a running rampant,
getting more people sick, causing deaths. Right. I mean, Herman
Kane died after going to I think it was in Oklahoma,
going to a rally of his he got COVID and died.
(09:46):
I mean, Chris Christy recounts that Trump gave him COVID
when they're doing debate prep before he went into a
debate with a seventy seven year old former vice president
who was his opponent with COVID and didn't tell anyone,
and he almost he killed Chris Christie, right, some guy
who was previously supporting him. That happened, you know, over
and over and over at these big rallies, this disease spreading.
(10:08):
But the reality is the big majority of people who
maybe weren't on board with Trump overall, were just sick
of COVID, and so if they found something or someone
out there who could give them information to say that
they weren't a bad person for all gathering in groups
with their friends and family, right or for opening their
business because they simply needed to be able to earn
a living. And they found that in Trump, or in
(10:31):
RFK Junior, or in doctor Oz or any of these
other people that he's putting into the public health apparatus.
People clung to that, right. They were looking for someone
to tell them, you really don't need to stay away
from people. You really can get together at Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Don't You'll be fine this it's the flu, it's the cold,
it's no big deal. None of that was true, but
(10:53):
they wanted to hear it. They were ready to hear it.
And I think that is to me, the irreparable damage
that has been done is that those people kind of
got into those places. Then that began the distrust of
the system in general, and it primed a whole new
group of people for believing a sort of anti science
views of someone like our a junior that's going to
(11:15):
take a long time to sex right talking about it
with someone like you here, and this podcast is part
of it. Like people like me trying to go everywhere
we can to talk about to highlight the problem and
to reinforce the importance of science and fact based practice
of HealthShare and public health. I think that's how we
claw our way back.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
You know, one of the things that I've seen recently,
and I know that obviously you have seen all of
the headlines of mass exodus of doctors leaving Red states,
largely around abortion, but fleeing and turning certain states, these
red states into health deserts. And I'm wondering, as again
(11:58):
this administration takes is it going to be possible do
you think for blue state governors to be able to
keep their constituents safe, Like if you have all of
these doctors that are leaving. Leaving is largely an economic
privilege when people are able to afford to be able
(12:20):
to leave. And these doctors are doing so because they
don't want to go to jail.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
Even besides that, they don't want to practice an environment
where they know they know what to do medically, but
they're not allowed to do that, even not with that,
even with vaccines, with other aspects of healthcare practicing in environments.
I mean, I practice in a state where Medicaid has
been expanded under the ACA, but there are still ten
states that happen, and that, to me, would be really
hard to practice in a place like that with people
(12:46):
who could otherwise afford healthcare if they just happen to
live in a different state, but they can't afford to
get insurance. Like the moral injury associate with that in
practicing medicine. There's a lot to that, and people go
into mesine for a lot of different reasons. But if
you ask everyone who you know first applied to med school,
what's the first answer to the first question when you
want to be a doctor, I would venture ninety ninety
(13:07):
five percent would say because I want to help people.
When an entire system is set up so you can't
help people, and it's a different state by state, and
it becomes more challenging when a new administration comes in
and puts up rules and tries to do things like
Medicaid blog brands, which will decrease a number of people
in Medicaid, which decrease the number of people with ACA plans,
which they did when he was last president, two millions
(13:29):
fewer people had insurance than have it now. That makes
it harder to do this job. It is genuinely a
moral injury, and you're right we have the economic privilege
to say I'm just going to step away, you know,
I'm going to do something else, and I'm going to
use my savings or what have you and try to
live a different life and not have to day by
day be exposed to this risk and that moral injury
(13:49):
of people being sick that don't have to be sick.
That's hard, and again that's something from which we have
to claw back, and I think we will. I think
we can, but it's going to just take a concerted
effort people talking about it and promoting truth wherever we can.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
And to that point, I wholeheartedly agree. And I wonder
about your thoughts with regard to places like New York
and California who have governors that are saying, you will
keep you safe, You'll be safe, you know this place,
it will be a haven, etc. To what extent do
you think that that is possible when the government, right,
(14:28):
the federal government is the largest institution that can help
or harm people at will.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
Yeah, I think it's possible to blunt the negative impact.
And don't forget my governor Gretchen whitmerher in Michigan. Yes,
you love her, and she is vowed to defend people's
rights and to help promote their health. So I think yeah,
they definitely can have a very significant impact on that.
State policies and state boards of health and even in
communities right, county health departments have a huge say in
(14:59):
what's of available right and spreading truth and good information.
It just having someone like Ourka, or having Donald Trump,
or having os and positions of power with a platform
with a megaphone just makes it harder. It just means
they're going to have to work harder to provide the
counter narratives of truths from what people are getting from
(15:20):
the administration and find the right channels of communication to
do that right, whether it be on podcasts like this
YouTube TikTok, you know, where people are consuming the information.
It just makes their job harder and I'm sure very frustrating,
But you know, these are people. That's why they're there
to help protect and defend the people of their state.
(15:41):
I have faith in them. I feel badly for people
in Florida, people in Texas. I really do my colleagues,
but just general citizen rido, mate just kind of can't
think about it every day. They just set their liver,
the lives and you know, take care of their families.
But they're they're being bombarded, you know, with people like
DeSantis out there kind of voice the same crazy use
(16:02):
as we're hearing from Trunk.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
What advice do you give to people right now, particularly
those who use the Affordable Care Act for their healthcare
who are at risk? I think, what is it? It's
over twenty million people, myself included as a self employed person,
who are at risk. What advice do you give to
people as this administration comes in?
Speaker 2 (16:28):
I think, no matter where you live, please please please
communicate to your elected officials in the federal government. You're
a member of Congress, your senator. You know, if you
happen to live in an area with a Republican member
of Congress, Republican senator, call in. Let their office know
how much you depend upon those and if they are
going to make changes, they have to make sure they
(16:48):
have something ready to replace whatever they think is not working.
Let's be real, it could all be better, right. Your
insurance is still expensive, I'm sure, and your cope and
doctorbles are still more than they should be. So if
they have ideas, I mean, we are you know, I
work to this organization the Committee to Protect Healthcare. We're
a non partisan organization. It just so happens. We haven't
(17:11):
yet found a Republican with policy proposals that actually are
going to help people more than more than what we've
got going. But if they come to the table with
something that generally is better, is cheaper, provides more access,
let's go like we are ready, We'll jump on board.
The problem is everything we've seen them do makes it
more expensive, that has less access, less coverage, and will
(17:34):
hurt more people. So I think it's really speaking up
and voicing that your support of what you have and
your need to have affordable health care to those people
in those positions to take the vote that could take
it away.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
Yeah, I agree, And I had told my listeners and followers,
you know, to book their doctor's appointments, to make sure
that they're up to date on their vaccines, to do
whatever seizures that maybe they had been putting off because
we don't know when and how it will be pulled away,
but that you know, it could very well be a
(18:09):
light switch moment where you know, tens of millions of
people wake up and don't have health care.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
I think that's smart advice. I don't think anyone could
argue with that advice. We don't know what the future holds,
but if we know what is happening in the present
and what we have, yeah, I mean, I think that's
a very good advice that I'm going to take to heart.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
And finally, doctor Davidson, again, we have but a couple
of months left until this takes shape, the fullness of
this administration comes into view. What is your advice to
young people that are going into the medical profession at
the same time that this administration is taking shape? What
(18:52):
do you say to those young people?
Speaker 2 (18:54):
I think too fold one, it is still a very
rewarding thing to be able to be a person in
your community that helps keep the community healthy, to help
take care of people and their families. So it is
still extremely rewarding and it's worthwhile. I think. The other
thing is we have agency. We have a voice through
organizations like ours or other organizations. Physician voices are critically important.
(19:17):
Right to speak out on behalf of our patients, whether
it before policies we believe in or against the policies
or the actions of Trump or anyone else who is
going to endanger our patients or our ability to help them,
and so do not just sit on your hands. I
mean it's hard. Early on, we've had people in organization
(19:38):
who've been threatened by employers, by big hospitals because we've
kind of been going after policies that the hospitals use
to make things more expensive. And you know, these folks
are like, I have a mortgageized student loans. I'm the
primary bread earner. I get it. I get it. But
I think if we want to have you know, the
system we have and we want to make it better,
we have to lift up our own voices. You know,
(19:59):
we have to it. It's as much as it might be
difficult for us, it's a lot easier for us than
this for a lot of our patients. You know, we
have that ability, and we have the economic security to
be able to do that, definitely more than a lot
of our patients too. And we have expertise, and we
for the most part have the trust of people who
were talking to And so make that a part of
(20:23):
how you practice medicine advocacy, using your voice and as
public the way it is you feel comfortable doing. I
think that's a new piece of medicine that I didn't
consider back in the nineties when I first got into
those and I think it's just become clear that we
have to be there, we have to have that piece
above the way we practice medicine.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
Yeah, doctor Davidson, thank you so much for making time
for WOKF Daily. Really appreciate your insights and your advice.
Speaker 2 (20:51):
Absolutely, I really enjoy talking with you, and I'm happy
to do it anytime.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
Absolutely, we'll have you back again soon.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
That is it.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
But for me today to hear friends on Woke af
as always power to the people and to all the
people power, get woke and stay woke as fuck.
Host
Danielle Moodie
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