TRUST ME I KNOW WHAT I'm DOING

Hi there. I'm Abhay Dandekar, and you're listening to Trust Me, I Know What I'm Doing. We're almost at election day here in the US, so we're sharing a series of Lotus for POTUS conversations, hearing insights from leading edge to help inform and get out the vote. While some of you may have already voted, many are still organizing and learning and figuring things out in this critical election. A focal point of attention for many voters centers around the health of our country and its wellness going forward.

As a practicing doctor, I have a front row seat to what's at stake in this election related to the cost, access, and choices for Americans and their health care, especially as there are simply so many intersections with important issues, climate change, gun violence, food security, personal freedom, democracy, and economic prosperity. So in partnership with Doctors for Harris, I decided to share conversations with doctors from different parts of the country who've been committed to protecting the health of Americans and supporting Kamala Harris as the best leader and accelerator for a healthy nation. These brief chats all highlight physician leaders sharing their personal stories and experiences that magnify the imperative of voting for Kamala Harris. Stay tuned.

I'm doctor Raul Ruiz.

I represent California's 25th district. It's the southeast corner of California. So I share a border with Arizona, Mexico, and a sliver of Nevada. Perhaps there is no more visible of a leader who is advocating at the policy and grassroots level than emergency medicine physician congressman Raul Ruiz, of California's 25th district. He's also running for reelection, so please go learn more about him at doctorraulruiz.com.

Here's doctor Ruiz sharing a poignant story about health care access and cost as a physician doing outreach in his community. I remember being out in the community organizing community forums about how to improve health care access and what are the barriers and what we can do as a community to really expand providers, clinics, health education in the hardest to reach areas. And I remember leaving one of these sessions, and I saw this woman. She was about maybe in her late forties, and she was a farm worker and she was out there. And she was picking at the trash, and and and she had participated in in my event.

And so I walked up to her, and I asked her, like, what, you know, what are you doing? And she says, oh, I'm I'm collecting cans, doctor. And she spoke to me in Spanish, and she said, I'm collecting cans so that I can get the money to pay for the insulin because I have diabetes. And, I said, oh, and she said, but don't worry, doctor. I only take half a dose so that I can make it last.

And I thought about her during, you know, the inflation reduction act where we finally allowed Medicare to negotiate drug prices, where we limited the cost of insulin and Medicare to $35 a month, where we put a cap on all, prescription drug costs to 2,000 a year. And, vice president Kamala Harris gave the, tie breaking vote, and she advocated for it. And amongst, my colleagues, senators and representatives. And so now I'm just thinking back about how this administration has helped, 1, by reducing the cost of insulin, and Kamala Harris wants to expand that effort in reducing prescription drugs into the private industry as well and how they have not only defended, the Affordable Care Act, but helped implement it to a point where the Latino uninsured rate dropped from 32.7% pre ACA to now only 18%, enrolling nearly a 1000000 more Latinos in the last 2 years. So so this is what's at stake.

You know? Kamala Harris, who wants to end medical debt, wants to expand health care access, wants to reduce the cost of prescription drugs, and you have an ex president who has demonstrated chaos and extremism, who wants to cut Medicare, cut Social Security, gut the Department of Education, gut Medicaid, and eliminate the Affordable Care Act, all in order to pay for the 1,000,000 and billions he wants to give even more to millionaires and billionaires and tax breaks. Yeah. Which is really so poignant. I mean, whether it's access, whether it's comprehensive, compassionate care, whether it's restructuring or drug costs, whether it's reproductive rights.

I mean, the list goes on and on. In your capacity, because you have a front row seat to this, not only as a seasoned practitioner, someone who's out in the community, someone who really is boots on the ground in in your district, but then also at the policy level. Is there an imperative right now that particularly that you are are focused on and and really thinking about the partnership and the coalition that vice president Harris will be building in this effort and along with, of course, the incredible importance of electing officials like you and and making sure that we have partnerships in congress and and in the private sector and in the public sector as well. Well, I you know, one of the biggest bills right now in health care is my bill that would strengthen Medicare for Patients and Providers Act. Throughout the years, the physician pay schedule has received cuts.

And every year at the end of the year, fiscal year, there's this effort to prevent these cuts. And these cuts have occurred or stagnant reimbursement rates have occurred despite the increase in the cost of providing care or the medical inflation rate. And so, essentially, over the years, doctors have taken the 26% cut in their ability to practice medicine and pay for keeping their doors open. And so you're seeing a lot of doctors in rural impoverished areas who would prefer not to Yeah. Take Medicare patients and who are more skewed in wanting to favor the private health insurance, patients.

So my bill, the strengthening Medicare for patients and providers act would tie physician reimbursement to the medical economic index, which is the medical inflation rate. And so making sure that we have a dock fix and looking at not just the affordability of medication, but also increasing the amount of providers available and addressing the physician shortage crisis, incentivizing doctors to remain in practice because a third of of the physician workforce is already in retirement age, but also incentivizing doctors to practice in locations where doctors are needed the most. So I'm really thrilled for that, but we need to elect Harris and Waltz in order to have the idea of expanding good coverage, good health care, more physicians in the right places instead of what the Republican MAG agenda is, which is repealing the Affordable Care Act, which is once again allowing these junk health insurance plans that may have a cheaper premium, but they don't cover any emergencies. So when you need your insurance, you won't have it to back you up and you'll now then we'll see more medical debt. They'll remove the pool for the healthy to get these junk insurance, and the chronically ill will get will be in the other insurances, which would they would not be able to afford.

And so by putting everybody together and making sure that we have essential health benefits is what's gonna be the best way forward. It hits so many different, tentacles from, you know, what our ideals are and and builds partnership, not to mention expanding care coverage for and having senior care at home, which is one of the proposals I know, vice president Harris has has put out there. One last thing, congressman Ruiz, as a physician, as an elected official, at the end, all of this is about trust. So why should voters entrust vice president Harris and governor Waltz with their vote? First of all, they have a very strong track record, what governor Waltz has done in his state, expanding Medicaid, ensuring that that the uninsured population dramatically decreased.

Vice president Harris and her life story of being in a middle class has struggled like, many of our families did, who has a track record of consistently voting for expanding, protecting Medicare, Social Security, and then her plan. You know, she she has a plan to protect and strengthen Medicare. She has a plan to expand Medicaid. She has a plan, like you mentioned, to provide home caregiver support for parents and grandparents. She has a plan to help reduce the cost of medicine and to protect Medicare's ability to negotiate drug prices with pharmaceutical companies.

You know, all that's at risk. You can't you can't trust ex president Donald Trump because he's constantly lying. I mean, he took away reproductive freedoms for women to to decide what to do with their own bodies and have access to safe, legal abortions. And and now, you know, he's lying saying that, one, he didn't do that. He gave it to the states.

Everybody wanted the states to have it. So now we have chaos. We have doctors that are being criminalized. We have patients who need emergency procedures. And, you know, instead of taking care of the patient, doctors are calling their lawyers.

And patients' outcomes are hurting. We've heard of cases where people have died, or they've had bad outcomes. And so this is this is the state of chaos and extremism that ex president Donald Trump is is once again offering to to the nation.

I'm doctor Alice Chen. I'm a primary care physician, and I'm voting for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.

Working in a federally qualified health center, doctor Alice Chen, who is one of the leaders of the Doctors for Harris movement and a long time physician advocate, share some insights on whether we are including everyone in this fight, the impact of climate change and climate policy on health care, and the importance of character and compassion in this election. When I think about this election, I think about all of my patients. I work at a federally qualified health center, and I take care of patients who are just working class trying to make it construction workers, nannies, daycare workers, people who work in restaurants. They're just trying to sort of pull together the resources to care of themselves and their families. There's one particular person I've been thinking about though.

I've known her. She's just she was my patient 20 years ago, and we're still in touch. And this is a woman who, you know, has had a rough go at life and is always wondering, do I matter? Do I'm and and of all of her chronic medical conditions, that is the the core of it is, do I matter to society? Does anybody care who I am?

Does anybody care if I have a place to sleep tonight or if I have a meal today? And when I look at the 2 candidates who are running for president in this cycle, it feels so obvious and clear to me which person cares about the person, not the most successful person in the room, who's gonna gravitate toward the person who needs you, the person who needs help, the person who needs a kind word, who needs a smile, who needs just acknowledgment that they matter. And it's clear to me that Kamala Harris is is that person. With that relationship that you've developed with this patient and all your patients, by the way, over the past many, many years, how have we come to this state of affairs where we have to ask that question? I think there is a there's like an empathy and compassion gap, a gap in sort of recognizing how much we are all connected to each other and how much we need each other.

It's so easy in this era of having a a phone and digital online. You can order whatever you want, and you don't even see the face of the person who made it or delivered it. You just it appears and voila to think that we don't need each other. But you think about, you know, I think about all of my patients, that construction worker. I live in a I live in a home because of that person.

Right? The day care worker, that is the reason that people can go to work, that me and my friends can go to work. There There's so many people whose lives we depend on that we don't really think about. There's been a lot of rhetoric we've been hearing from people who should be leaders or should not be leaders, but they are leaders in this country who are saying things like, well, those people are subhuman. Those people don't belong here.

These people are just, like, sucking resources away. They're taking from you and they're taking from you, and those people don't matter. And these people should never come to this country. And it creates an environment where people wonder to themselves, oh, wait. I'm hearing this on the news.

I'm hearing this from people who others have elected to office. Is it true that I don't belong here? Right. You know, when we think a little bit about all the connections and all the relationships that we develop, and yet there are are stark compromises when it comes to our existence and and the importance of humanity carrying forward. And and the record that president Biden and, vice president Harris currently, some of the the things that they've enacted and and some of the values that they share in making sure that that climate is at the forefront of this has great, great impact on health care and vice versa.

So maybe you can speak, for a moment as to why that part is so important as well. Climate change is this under rep under recognized huge factor that is happening for people's health. We look at all the heat waves that were happening over the summer and people think, oh, well, I'm not outside. I'm not, you know, a construction worker. I'm not gonna get heatstroke and die.

It's if it's if it's hot out, it's worsening your high blood pressure. It's making you more likely to have a stroke. It's making your lung disease worse. It's worse for you if it's not for you, for your family members. It means your kids can't go out and play, and it means that people who need to get exercise aren't able to go out and get exercise.

Right? When you have a flood that is shutting down a city, that means someone's not getting the surgery that they needed. That means that people aren't getting in vacations that they, you know, weren't supposed to refill at the pharmacy, and that's putting them at risk. I mean, the the work that president Biden and vice president Harris had done on climate change is extraordinary. We are putting in all the resources to invest in clean energy, which is not just for climate change, but it means cleaner air and cleaner water.

It's less pollution for all those people who have kids who are sick all the time, have asthma attacks. It's it's for all of it's it's for health right now today and health into the future. Yeah. It's pro clean energy, pro health care, pro opportunity, pro investment, pro future. And and as you think about all of that, why do you think patients what do you think the public should be voting for Kamala Harris?

The public should be voting for Kamala Harris because she is fighting for the people. She's here to make sure other people are okay. And it is so incredibly important to pay attention to the character of the person that we are electing to be president of the United States. Do we want somebody who feels like this is a place where everybody does belong, whether you are a Fortune 500 CEO or if you're down on your luck and you're trying to figure out where you're gonna sleep tonight, that everyone does belong and everyone matters. We cannot have a president who makes fun of people who have disabilities, who have a different kind of name, that who are have a different religion.

We cannot have that in the United States of America where we all do better when we all do better. And so the policy flows from the character. Right? The the people that they put in place to help run the country, it all flows from the character of the person that we elect as president. And to me, it is so obvious, you know, if I had a patient who was looking to me for help, would I send that person to Donald Trump or would I send that person to Kamala Harris who would hold their hand and look at them in the eye and say, I got you.

I'm gonna work on this. I'm gonna try to fix this. It's not gonna be easy. And It's just gonna help make things better for everybody, and I think that is incredibly important for people to know.

My name is Anita Somani.

I am an OB GYN here in Columbus, Ohio. I've been in practice for 32 years. In 22, when the Dobbs decision was being leaked and when redistricting was happening here in Ohio, I was asked to run for office because I had been doing a lot of advocacy work in the women's health space. So I ran for election as the state representative for the part of Northwest Columbus and ended up winning in November of 22, and now I'm running for reelection. A very, very bright spotlight in this election is on having the freedom and right to make choices and create partnerships with a physician to learn about and utilize safe and evidence based practices when it comes to reproductive health.

As you just heard, Ohio state senator and OB GYN physician, doctor Anita Somani, whose campaign information can be found at doctors somani for ohio.com, also in the show notes, by the way, is absolutely at the forefront of this movement for her patients and her constituents. You know, there have been so many stories over the years. I mean, these abortion restrictions didn't happen in a vacuum. No. Here in Ohio, they've been happening for the last 12 years.

And, unfortunately, until the Dobbs decision happened, most people didn't realize how difficult it was becoming to access abortion. And I have so many stories of patients, you know, who had complications whether from their health or fetal anomalies. I remember one patient specifically saying to me that she never thought that she would consider abortion, but as somebody who was in the health care space, she recognized all of the hardships, all of the problems that her fetus would face with the anomaly that it had. It was an anomaly that was devastating, but not an anomaly that was incompatible with life. And I think those are the hardest decisions.

And so she ended up terminating her pregnancy and she said, you know, that really opened my eyes to why it is so important to keep abortion legal. And I said, yeah. I go as an OB GYN, it's a medical procedure. It's not a political procedure. It's something that we have as part of the things we can offer patients.

Yeah. It's interesting. I think that the messaging from the opposition is so much more based on absolutes and fear as opposed to compassion and thinking through the grays and understanding what choice and and caring are all about. How do you hope voters and particularly those who are dissecting this out a little bit will choose caring and compassion and choice over fear and absolutes? Well, 1 out of 4 women have had an abortion.

You know, and an abortion includes miscarriage care. It includes ectopic pregnancy care. So you and I are in a different situation, but the average person knows someone who has had one of those situations happen. So I think the majority of abortions happen in the 1st trimester. The majority of them are medical abortions, but 1 to 2% are what we see in the 2nd trimester, and those are deeply wanted pregnancies.

So Yeah. I think we have to put it in those terms. I think we have to help people to understand that you may need this care someday and you may be that person that you've heard about in the news that had to travel across 3 states or, you know, was turned away from 3 emergency rooms because the doctors were afraid of losing their license. Nobody wants to live in a world of fear like that. So I think we as physicians really when we're talking about choices when it comes to political elections, we need to talk about those things in the context of loss of care.

And I think one thing that extends out of this, extends out of the abortion restrictions, where we're losing access to preventative care. We're losing access to contraceptive care, to pap smears, to mammograms because physicians are choosing not to come here. It's very hard to recruit someone to come to a state where they may lose their license, where they may be criminalized for the for the truly medical care that they provide. I mean, that's a great point. Right?

We're seeing these giant deserts for effective prenatal care throughout the country and especially in areas where the need is so vast and and, you know, such an imperative, to combat, you know, at least access parts of this. So why why is it so compelling for voters right now at this very important time to consider the, Harris Waltz campaign as the choice when it comes to health care and keeping our health care safe and and secure, and on top of that, keeping our our nation well. So project 2025, which is the blueprint for the Republican party for the Trump party agenda, no matter how much he tries to distance himself from that, whether you call it a national abortion ban or not, the fact that somebody has to travel across states or the fact that federal law would supersede any of the states like California or Illinois laws, we would effectively have a national abortion ban. Why why vote for Harrison Walls? I think you have to even consider the people that have been marginalized in all of this, whether it's your LGBTQ plus communities.

Women are being marginalized because they can't access the care they need. And there's an economic cost to this. Right? When you force a 12 year old, 13 year old to have a baby, that disrupts her education, that disrupts her future financial potential, that disrupts her ability to maybe go on to college, maybe go on to law school or medical school. It takes a lot to overcome those circumstances.

And, again, you're not hearing that in the context of project 2025, but it is about marginalizing women. It is about making us second class citizens. And I my 94 year old mother-in-law said to me, my granddaughters have less rights than I did at their age. And I mean, think about it. She went from a space of not being able to get a house or a credit card or a car without a male signature, without her dad's signature, her husband's signature, to now seeing her rights being eroded.

So there's there's no question in my mind if you are a woman who whether you have a daughter, a sister, a friend, you know, no matter who you have that calls themselves, you know, female, you need to recognize that your rights will be taken away if we don't get Harris Walz elected.

So I'm doctor Annie Andrews. I'm a pediatric hospitalist at Children's National Medical Center in Washington DC. And if you care about our nation's children and a safe and equitable future for every child, then you need to listen to doctor Annie Andrews, former South Carolina congressional candidate and the founder of their future our vote dot org, an advocacy group dedicated to prioritizing centering children's issues at the political level. She's a pediatrician, a mom, and also a gun violence researcher and shared a powerful story magnifying why immediate action to prevent the number one killer of children in the United States is so important.

I think one of the most dramatic stories that stands in my, you know I carry with me everywhere I go was a a young child who had found an unsecured firearm on a coffee table in his home. And as curious young children do, he picked it up, he pulled the trigger while the barrel was pointed at him, and he shot himself in the head. He had multiple neurosurgical procedures. Part of his skull was removed. By the time I took care of him as a hospitalist on his way to an inpatient rehab center, He was learning how to walk again.

He was learning how to feed himself. He was learning how to talk again. Now some would say he's so lucky that he survived, but you and I both know that this was an entirely preventable injury. Yeah. Because child access to unsecured firearms is a preventable tragedy.

And I am so sick and tired of elected politicians who refuse to act to address this public health crisis, which is pediatric firearm injuries. You know, gun violence is now the leading cause of death for children in this country, and that includes homicide, suicide, and these tragic unintentional shootings where young children gain access to unsecured firearms. And as pediatricians, we know that there are answers to these problems. These are preventable injuries, and there are very clear legislative solutions that will reduce the incidence of these unintentional injuries in addition to reducing the incidence of youth suicides and guns showing up on school grounds. And that's a federal secure storage law.

And that is not a law that any Republican will support at the federal level, but that is a law that will be supported by a Harris Walls administration. And that is one of the main reasons that I am so dedicated to doing everything I can to elect Kamala Harris, Tim Walz, and Democrats up and down the ballot in 2024 because everything is at stake for our nation's children, but most importantly to me, real action to address this public health crisis of gun violence. Particularly for this issue, but and then for so many other issues that are at stake when it comes to children and families and advocating for them. What is the major gap? Or what's the actual, like, disruption between, you know, going from, hey.

We've got these great important upstream imperatives to can we execute on these actions? Why is there something missing, and how do you hope the Harris Waltz campaign will fix this? Well, honestly, I believe as physicians and specifically pediatricians, a lot of this is on us. We have to take accountability for the fact that so many of us have been checked out of politics because we feel like it's noble to be apolitical, because we feel like we can't bring our politics into our professional life. And because of that, we've been essentially asleep at the wheel, and kids are not prioritized in Washington DC or in state houses all across this country.

We don't share the stories that we see at the bedside day in and day out, and we forget that the general public has no idea what it's like to work inside the four walls of a children's hospital, has no idea how frequently we encounter families who are struggling to put food on the table, families who have a teenager who are struggling with mental health crises and they can't access mental health resources in their community, families who can't access the Internet in their homes. And if we don't share these stories, then no one will. We have platforms and megaphones as physicians, as pediatricians, and it is incumbent on us to share our patient stories to make voters understand what is at stake for children in this election and every election. And then if voters start voting on issues that matter to kids, then our elected officials will respond to that. Mhmm.

And, you know, the Harris Walls campaign is an incredible campaign for children. You know, they are campaigning on access to affordable child care, access to pre k, expanding and making the child tax credit permanent, permanently funding the children's health insurance program, addressing firearm violence, addressing climate change, all of these things that our children so desperately need and deserve. But I do think we lack a cohesive messaging strategy as a Democratic party to really help voters understand that if they wanna vote in the best interest of their children, there is one choice for them, and that's to vote for Democrats up and down the ballot. You know, it reminds me that, imperative as physicians is, of course, to be agnostic at the bedside and be clinically sound, but we cannot lose out on all the opportunities to be advocates everywhere else and making sure that that our voices are heard and that we are cohesive in our messaging, particularly around children and families. We certainly are saying the same words, and we're singing the same song.

But for voters out there who are are now rediscovering their political will, and they're re getting reintroduced to the campaign, and for many of them, actually learning for the first time about the Harris Walz camp campaign and what's at stake here. What's your message to voters, particularly in this very, very historic election, but also an unprecedented one and one that has so much at stake? This is an unprecedented election. The Republican Party has moved so far to the extreme right that we are we really have to reexamine the way that we vote. We need to think about what our own personal values and priorities are.

And then with an open mind, we need to look at the platform of the 2 options at the top of the ticket. And for me, as a pediatrician and a mom of 3 children, the choice could not be more clear. I live in South Carolina, and I am surrounded by a lot of women who grew up in Republican households and were taught that that is the way you vote if you are Christian. And it's just time that we reexamine all of that. And also acknowledge that just because you decide to vote for Democrats this cycle because of the extremism on the right, because of what is at stake for women's reproductive health care, for gun violence, for climate change, for everything.

That doesn't mean you're committing to be a Democrat for the rest of your life. It's also important to remember that your vote is private. You don't have to tell anybody who you're voting for. You need to assess your personal values, identify the candidate that is most aligned with those values, keep an open mind, and understand that this is unlike any election we have ever faced, and our children cannot vote. And they are counting on us to think about them 1st and foremost when we walk into the voting booth.

Hi. My name is Mark Lopatin. I am a retired rheumatologist. I'm a physician and patient advocate and a registered republican. I'm also the author of a book on health care addressing how patient care is being compromised by the powers that be.

Doctors and patients are faced with incredible choices at the bedside. And let's listen now to doctor Mark Lopatin, a rheumatologist, a Republican, and the author of the book Room For Improvement as he shares his insights on what's at stake for the doctor patient relationship, reproductive rights, and the dangers of project 2025. I'm a rheumatologist. I was asked to see a patient in the ICU with lupus. She was 22 weeks pregnant.

She was 20 years old. And the lupus had caused inflammation around the lining of her heart resulting in fluid and pressure on the heart, so the heart could not expand enough to pump blood adequately to the tissues. She was comatose when I met her, so I couldn't get a history from her. We had tried a number of treatments, steroids. They put a pericardial window in to try to relieve the pressure to no effect.

She was pregnant. It was putting an undue stress on the heart. Sure. And, ultimately, the question came up as to whether or not an abortion could help her. Now, ideally, what we wanted to do is we wanted to wait another week or 2.

Because if we could wait another week or 2, the baby might be viable. They might be able to save the baby. Questions, could she last that long? Yeah. And we debated this, you know, a lot over the next day or 2.

We met with the family a number of times, and a decision for an abortion was decided upon. Not an easy decision. You know, people tend to think that these are these are casual decisions. I think I'll just get an abortion. No.

It doesn't work like that. Abortion was performed. A few days later, she woke up. She recovered. She became my patient for the next 8 years.

She went back to school. She got her degree. She became a teacher, and her life was saved. Yeah. And what it makes me think about was what would happen in a post Dobbs world with this patient in a state where abortion was viewed as legal?

Mhmm. Fetus was was had a heartbeat. The answer was both the patient and the fetus would have died. And what struck me was how people other than physicians are making the decision as to what happens with patients. For physicians, in this particular case, not performing an abortion would have meant the death of the mother.

And there have been a number of cases, the Kate Cox case in Texas, the Amanda Ziaroski case in Texas. There was a case of a 50 week pregnant woman in South Carolina whose water broke, and fetus was not viable. So there's all these stories that you hear, but the bottom line is a physician should not be placed in the position of having to decide between whether to commit malpractice or whether to be possibly prosecuted for a crime. Right. That's an untenable situation, and that's a situation that exists in a number of states.

As that powerful story, resonates so loudly for you and for many patients and women, the at the core of this is, of course, not only physician autonomy, but for the patient to have that autonomy to be able to partner with you as well. And does that story particularly highlight a current gap? Well, first of all, patient autonomy is synonymous with physician autonomy. Yeah. Physician autonomy simply refers to the recommendation that I'm going to make.

Right. Then there is a discussion with the patient. So, ultimately, the patient could decide not to take a physician's recommendation. So, ultimately, we are talking about patient autonomy. Let me be clear on that.

But the issue is, who decides this stuff? There are other examples. As a rheumatologist, one of the drugs used to treat rheumatoid arthritis is methotrexate. It's the standard of care. It's a routine drug for treating, rheumatoid arthritis.

If I've got a 25 year old woman who needs to be on methotrexate and she could theoretically get pregnant, methotrexate can cause miscarriages. If I prescribe it and choose a miscarriage, am I guilty of a crime? And rheumatologists in states where abortion is not legal have to debate that whether they do what's best for their patient. So it boils down to acting in the best interest of patients. As a physician, as a government, if we focus on what's best for patients, the rest of the stuff will take care of itself.

When we talk about all the other issues, malpractice premiums and physician autonomy and cost of health care, focus on the patients. Why and and you, you've shared that you're a registered republican, as well. You know, thinking of that story, thinking of the gaps that that get exposed in in sharing your story, why why is voting for Kamala Harris and Tim Waltz, why does voting for that ticket help advance our nation's health and well-being, and in that way, the autonomy that you see? What we're dealing with in this election is a difference in vision. Now we may not agree with everything that Kamala Harris wants to put in place, but the worldview is she is trying to put something in place to help others, to help Americans with health care.

Whether you agree with it or not, the intent is there. Yeah. That's not the intent on the republican side. The republican side is to break down, to criticize the Affordable Care Act. It's not to offer alternatives.

And the Affordable Care Act has pros and cons to it. We can argue it both sides of the equation. Sure. What's the world view? Let me give you a specific example.

Let's talk about project 2025, and, specifically, we're gonna talk about Medicaid. One of the things that exists right now is Medicaid is provided to those who have income less than a 138% of the poverty line. What it says in project 2025 is that this is a problem because those who are close to that line will not seek to increase their income because they will lose their Medicaid. So their incentive is to stay on Medicaid and glom onto the system, milk the system rather than improve themselves. And it boils down to a basic vision.

I've I've made the the statement that health care politics boils down to the question of what do the haves, I. E. The rich, the healthy, and the young, owe to the have nots, the poor, the sick, and the elderly. Mhmm. And how we view the have nots.

We can view the have nots as unfortunate, there but for the grace of God go I, with compassion we try to help them, or we can view them as scam artists who are simply trying to milk the system. Yeah. The difference between the two parties is illustrated in this Medicaid proposition from project 2025, which states that people are on Medicaid because they wanna be on Medicaid. They don't wanna improve themselves. They're lazy.

They're you know, that's the unspoken message. Whereas, Kamala Harris' vision, again, whether you agree with it or not, is let's try to help those who are less fortunate because there but for the grace of god, go I. That basic mindset is the the huge distinction between the two candidates.

Hello. My name is Micah Ernst.

I am originally from Detroit, Michigan, and I'm currently a 2nd year pediatric resident at Children's National Hospital in Washington, DC. No child or family in this country should ever go hungry, and everyone, regardless of their background, should have a voice and feel heard. As physicians, we know that social determinants of health like food security are at the core of advocating for anyone who is vulnerable or marginalized. Doctor Micah Ernst, who's a pediatric physician making contributions as a researcher and in caring for children and whose mother was a classmate of Kamala Harris at Howard University, shares her backstory and the multigenerational nature of her support for the Harris Waltz campaign. For me, it starts very young, where I was raised in Detroit, Michigan.

My grandmother was an educator in the city of Detroit for over 40 years. And just growing up, she was a principal over a school that served predominantly, you know, underserved minority children of Latin American descent, black students, and she would tell me stories about, you know, bringing food and and breakfast to students. And she had a license plate that would say save kids. So from her influence and my pediatrician who was a black woman who just loved what she did. I knew very early on that I wanted to do pediatrics and kinda like my grandmother's license plate, try to save kids.

So being the evidence base that we all need to talk about how cost effective it is to have something like the free breakfast and lunch program that governor Tim Walz, mandated in his state, which I think is just one great point to touch on and how that truly impacts future generations and how through some of the published work that I put out with, great mentors, was able to prove how it's efficacious not just for the health of children, but also for our government. And simple things like that where you have people who are thoughtful about the health of others. And just for people in general, it's just one personal way that there is such a stark difference in who we have to choose in November. And this impacts all a lot of the kids that I serve here from my clinic in Southeast DC to Northwest DC at Children's Hospital. So I'm just happy to be doing what I'm doing, but also to support my aunt Kamala Harris and Tim Waltz and what they've done and want to do.

I love how this has really streamed through generations for you. Right? Your grandmother being an educator, all the priorities that that she instilled in her communities, in her classrooms that she was in, to now you as a health care professional really prioritizing, making sure that we are paying attention to our most vulnerable communities, you know, noting that no one has to suffer in order for all of us to succeed. With that great and amazing kind of backdrop, does this magnify particularly for you what's at stake? To me, it's obvious, but what we have to say, unfortunately, is the the stark contrast and, you know, one person of the hyperwealthy first plan is to give tax breaks and make it more easy for the wealthy where my aunt Kamala loves to share her story about her upbringing, her middle class, and how her mom worked hard, her dad worked hard, and how she's just like us.

And that's why it's so personal. She's prioritizing it because it's near and dear to her. And I had a patient last week. Like, if I didn't have the money, would I have to have the baby? And I have to have that conversation with her.

And so I think it's so important to protect those who find it hard to protect themselves, but, systematically, we haven't built a system that supports them. And I think we are going forward in a direction of hope and of progress with vice president Harris and with Donald Trump. It's just really not a future that I wanna look forward to. You know, you mentioned we were talking earlier about how you have some very personal connections to vice president Harris, and her story, of course, resonates so powerfully for you. And one thing that she mentioned the other day that really, really is quite powerful in that the only question that she's constantly asking whether she's prosecutor, whether she's a legislator, whether she is now a candidate, is are you okay?

And in that same vein, we work with children every day. And for children and families, I'm just so curious how that resonates for you with someone who is constantly asking how people are doing and and how important their lives are when it comes to policy and the people who are in positions of of elected power. Why is this just so important to touch back to voters and to communities and neighborhoods? Yeah. I mean, it's I think should be the cornerstone of any party that is seeking election.

My aunt Kamala, who came from Howard University with my mom and had an upbringing in California and somebody who really operates from a place of joy and who wants to see others doing well. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the contrast is is so stark and and there, with the stakes so high, particularly for voters now, in the next few weeks, there's gonna be a a real kind of push to draw out these contrasts. Tell me, in your eye and with your voice, how do you think voters should really approach this election coming up?

I think it spans every topic that is important to someone. You know, we have my aunt really you know, I've heard her say it personally, and she said it a few times on this campaign trail that we are in a fight for democracy. And I think that is a salient difference in just the, really, the weight that we have and the real seriousness of what's on the ballot this November. We have to think about what's at stake for our children, for, you know, for you and I, for our patients, for the most vulnerable to even small businesses. Like, we they've discussed several times and the support that they wanna give to new homeowners and what that even means for me coming back to health care to have to ask my families about if they're, you know, dealing with pests.

And I think health and community and looking forward to a bright future and success for for everyone is what we have to to think about when we cast this vote. And the opposite side of the party line, I I can't relate to much that he has to offer. And, honestly, it it makes me scared for my child, my patients, my family members, my black brother, my black father, you know, just with police brutality, and and it just spans so many topics. I think that we can't ignore it and that we all have to do our part. Hi.

I'm Lalita Abhyankar. I'm a family physician, and I practice in the San Francisco Bay Area. Our population is aging and caring for seniors is of incredible importance not just in the medical office but in the community and at home. Listen now to family physician, writer, and consultant Lalita Abhyankar as she details her experiences and what's so compelling about Kamala Harris as a candidate, especially with the prospect of expanding coverage for care at home. I I moved recently from taking care of a population that was Medicare and Medicaid, so it's, like, you know, closer to the poverty line or people who didn't have as much income and started taking care of patients, who had exclusively commercial insurance and Medicare.

And one of the most stark contrast that I found is that there were a lot of aging adults who didn't have the support that they needed. So in a Medicaid population, because of the services that are offered, it's very easy to get someone to come by your house for, like, an hour or 2 a day just to maybe cook or clean or what we call independent activities of daily living. So in that capacity, when I had all of these elderly patients who I wasn't able to take care of, it's not like they were it's not like they had the most robust system in place. And so when Kamala Harris recently talked about expanding home care to all Medicare patients regardless of whether or not they were on Medicaid as well, that was something that was really inspiring to me. It sounds like she has personal experience there.

And so I think that having a president who kind of understands the day to day struggles of taking care of our aging population and our loved ones, I think is really valuable and important. And so that was that was definitely a a big contrast that I saw. What I what I get worried about like, we always worry about, like, how are we gonna pay for things. I think there's always ways to pay for things. With with our other option for our candidate, I worry that the system will be increasingly deregulated and that we won't actually have any of the supports in place to even make sure that our populations and our communities will actually have the support that they need.

After all, we pay taxes. And so I think that there is an obligation for government to make sure that the citizenry is healthy. When you think about the gap that's there now. Right? So no matter where anyone practices, if they're in a a clinic setting, if they're actually in a large health system, if they're in an ER even and they're seeing these patients, is the gap such that we are just lacking with a strong structure to help support individuals as the population ages that we're we're failing in a way to bring these services to their homes and really care for them at places where we traditionally haven't thought of.

And I I wonder if that gap is at all being addressed by those on the opposition who have concepts of a plan even. I think that the Republican way for the most part is to lean on privatization and to push services out into the private sector, which would be great, which would actually potentially lead to more competition and and more concepts around maybe providing services in a way that's that's affordable for people, except for the fact that a lot of these services are invisible. It's really difficult to get people to support aging. It's very it's expensive as well. Any sort of anytime you have a human involved, it's much more expensive.

Like, I could go get a car wash at, like, the the the machine car wash and pay, like, $15. But if you want a human to physically detail your car, it's it's much more expensive than that. And so this is human to human services that we need when it comes to taking care of our parents, our grandparents, especially if we're trying to take care of, you know, other family members or there's kids involved or you're just trying to work to make ends meet. There probably are concepts of a plan, but I think Maybe. Maybe.

But I I do think that in general, it tends to skew towards privatization of things, which I don't know that this is the right way to go on this particular service. Yeah. And I I love how you talked about earlier, which is what you mentioned about community building and that this can actually be the soil for an opportunity economy. Right? If you if the government does jump start this and there are services and policies in place for this to happen, that layer of competition, that layer of community building, that layer of growth in the economy around these services can actually build so much.

For you, what is it about Kamala Harris's candidacy as a physician now is providing you deep trust? What compels me about her candidacy is the fact that I I truly believe that she has an understanding of of what we have experienced. Reality is is that she exudes a lot of compassion. She has been here, especially when it comes to taking care of an older family member. And when it comes to health care specifically, I think that she she will try to do the best for our country.

So I'm Owais Durrani. I'm an emergency medicine physician in Houston, Texas. Yeah. I work at a, community hospital, and so the emergency department's kind of the front door to the health care system. And so we see all types of patients.

It's always exciting, and we get to help people. Frontline physicians are often the face of health care to many, many Americans, and so they have a unique lens on the impact of disasters, climate change, access, and availability of health care. Let's listen now to emergency medicine physician, doctor Owais Durrani, who is caring for patients every single day, seeing firsthand their struggles and noting opportunities that now exist at the ballot box to make a difference. The thing that stands out most is a couple months ago. So in Houston, we get a lot of storms and hurricanes, and we got hurricane barrel back in, July.

And I was working in the ER, during those days. And for me, personally, it was some of the toughest shifts and some of the toughest things I've seen for patients. So, obviously, we, you know, have the hurricane, then we lose power for, you know, some people had no power for weeks. I personally had no power for 7 days. Many people had no power for 2 weeks.

And at that time, primary care doctors' offices are closed. Right? They have no power. A lot of them can't get to work. Dialysis centers are closed.

Other emergency services are closed, and so we're the only place that's open when it comes for medical care and emergencies. And for me, it was even harder than COVID times because I think back to that one day where, you know, we obviously had our waiting room full, every single bed full, every hallway full. We were on generator power, but our Internet was working. So imagine in 2024, your EMR is not working. You're not getting back radiology reports.

And it was it was kind of this weird thing where we were super, super busy, but I also couldn't do much. And in that period, for me personally, I was like, man, wow. This climate change issue is gonna lead to more hurricanes, and it's gonna lead to more situations like this. And it's gonna be something that instead of having once every 3 or 4 years in Houston, we might have a few times a year in Houston. And most of the people in this year probably aren't thinking about climate change right in this moment, but it's impacting every single one of us and not in a good way.

Obviously, you add to that the other things that you see that are related to weather. Right? I can't even tell you how many heat stroke related heat exhaustion related patients I saw this year that were a lot younger than what I'm used to seeing. And you're seeing so many more asthma exacerbations and COPD exacerbations because of the air quality in a place like Houston in many major metropolitan centers, and it's impacting people whether they know it or not. And thinking now about being upstream in our not only just our health care policy, but in in our governmental policy here, What kind of gap do you think that this just this fundamental instance, this moment for you, if you will?

What kind of fundamental gap is this exposing that we really need to be mindful of when it comes to our elected leaders? Yeah. Absolutely. So I I think a lot of people think of, you know, for example, we'll take climate change and this as a a debate or something that's still something we're learning about. But from what I've experienced, it's not a debate.

It's something that is fact, and it's leading to deaths today and yesterday, and it will lead to deaths tomorrow. But our leaders or especially one side of the leadership doesn't treat it like that. They treat it as something that is coincidental or something that can be ignored or something that'll kind of sort itself out. And the fact that every day people are being negatively impacted and you're not even, acknowledging that is just very shocking to me. And so, for me, it's not a debate or it's not one side versus the other.

It's the answer is very clear, and there's a certain set of leaders and people that are running for office that see that, and we need to support them and amplify them. There there's just no other option. You know, and with that, there's so many intersections that play, you know, along with that climate change story and that climate crisis story. Because at your front door, all of the other healthcare imperatives, whether that is mental health, whether that is reproductive rights, whether that's access to safe and effective care, whether that's affordable care as well. All of these intersections sort of play in a crisis because they just get magnified.

So after that moment in thinking about why this is not really a debate, what's your message now to voters, particularly on the imperative of electing Kamala Harris in this upcoming election? We see so many issues in the ER. And what I experience is a lot of patients will come in with either for themselves or with a family member, and they won't realize how many obstacles there are to their care and how many issues there are with the system, whether it's their insurance covering something or whether them having no insurance in the first place or as you mentioned, reproductive rights or lack thereof, especially in a place like Texas. And so those patients, a lot of times, realize that when they show up to the ER for the first time that, oh, wow, the system isn't working for me, or, oh, wow. There's this huge gap that I thought I was protected or I had some type of access to care that I don't.

And a lot of times, they're in shock. They're frustrated. They're angry. They're emotional. Those are all valid things because people, unless you have had to deal with the health care system, you kind of we're taught to assume that, hey.

We have the best health care system in the world, and it'll be there for you. But, unfortunately, that's not true. And so my kind of message to voters is is that, unfortunately, we personally or all of us have family members that have had an experience with the health care system that probably hasn't been so pleasant. And so really look at what that experience was and just look at the two sides. You know, which side is really looking out for solving that problem, whatever it is, whether it's access or productive rights or climate health or a million other things, and then tell your friends about it, tell your family members about it because they may not know that.

You know, if you're a young 28 year old, maybe you haven't had that interaction with the health care system and you think it's gonna be there for you, and they may not be there for you in the way you think. Have those conversations with those folks around you so that they can kinda make those choices for themselves and vote in the way that when they do need that safety net, that is our health care system that they get the best care. I see it as a a duty. We all swore an oath, and there there's only one right choice here.

So my name is doctor Nina Agrawal.

I'm a pediatrician in New York City and I'm also board certified in child abuse pediatrics. The public health of our nation is absolutely dependent on upstream science where prevention helps combat local epidemics and global pandemics. Cultivating trust with physicians and policy makers is at the core of this, And here's pediatrician and child abuse expert doctor Nina Agrawal talking about why the stakes are so high to establish trust in our institutions and providers once again. As a pediatrician, something very basic to what I do every day, order shots, immunizations. A few things in my career, I've just seen enormous advancements in, and one of those is from vaccines.

It's something so basic and yet has really, I think, transformed pediatrics to the point where we don't have sick kids in hospitals anymore from serious infections. I mean, it's pretty incredible. So I I've seen the success from vaccines, but I've also seen what happened during the COVID pandemic with loss of trust in vaccines, and that was because there was loss in trust loss in trust in the government and the CDC and all these entities that we were just, these are our gold standard. You know, every day I I look at the CDC, recommendations. But what I'm seeing now, parents just refusing shots, basic shots, and that's become very frustrating because I wanna do right by their children, but they're getting misinformation.

You know, particularly, with this, has this kind of exposed a larger gap in what we do as as physicians? It seems like that that erosion of trust is something that particularly in the previous administration preceding the Biden Harris administration, that that's that's a sort of seed of of mistrust that that was sowed pretty actively. How have you been able to reflect on that, particularly, given what's at stake right now? I see this as an opportunity, right, to correct what went wrong, right, during the pandemic. And if we have proper leadership who respects science, respects health care providers, respects medicine, respects all these entities that come together to, make sure kids get immunized, then we could sort of, I guess, rectify the losses that we've experienced and that's, you know, children more children being unimmunized and seeing outbreaks of measles and other preventable illnesses.

And I I think what what's at stake here is, for me, is Trump saying he's going to get rid of vaccine mandates. And while COVID is one thing, right, then there's all vaccine mandates. So kindergarteners will no longer be required to get vaccines. And that is basically, that will be a pandemic every day, and it will be chaos for children not being able to attend school. So I'm not sure he understands the implications of saying something like that, and that scares me that he doesn't rely on professionals and scientists.

And I do believe that the Harris Biden administration does respect those entities and values or expertise. It's irresponsibility. It's the specter of breakouts where we never had those before. It's the prospect of seeing diseases like polio and measles and chickenpox and all these things that we've done such a successful job with trying to help curb and decrease the burden on children and families and for that matter, the health care system, you know, we'd never wanna see those come back the way they they did in previous generations. Given all of that and given it what's at stake and the idea of moving backwards, How should voters feel trustworthy, and why why do you think they should actually trust their vote in in a leader like Kamala Harris?

Right. For me, I'm a child abuse pediatrician, and I know Kamala Harris has prosecuted child abuse cases. And I work closely with people like her, and they are thick as nails. And they believe in the truth. They believe in science.

They believe in the facts, and they believe in kids who don't have a voice and families who don't have a voice. And they will, you know, fight tooth and nail to protect those children, their health, and their well-being. So I see that in her, and I admire it, and I I'm confident in her ability to use that, I guess, foundation to protect children, you know, all around.

I'm doctor Alicia Christy. I'm a reproductive endocrinologist, a obstetrician, gynecologist in the Maryland area.

The Dobbs decision. It's placed our country at a health care crossroads when it comes to reproductive rights and the autonomy of women to make their own informed choices. Doctor Alicia Christy, a retired army OBGYN physician, reproductive health expert, and women's health activist, shares 2 impactful stories on how choosing Kamala Harris is imperative to stopping misinformation. I actually have two stories. 1 is pre the Dobbs decision, and 1 is post the Dobbs decision.

And the pre Dobbs decision is actually a colleague of mine who conceived through IVF. She ruptured her membranes, broke her bag of orders, remote from term, and the chances of survival were almost 0. But she elected for conservative management, was admitted to the hospital. When she became infected and, in fact, became septic, they had to induce labor, which is the standard medical practice. And she later went on to have successful IVF twins.

And when she shared that story years later with one of the staff, one of her congressman staff, he chastised her for having an abortion. The second story is a story of a patient that I met at a press conference before the IVF act vote. And she too conceived through IVF. She too ruptured her membranes far, far from her due date, so the chance of survival was extremely low. They sent her home to wait to deliver or to get infected, and she delivered at home.

It was devastating. And she said, I will never forget the look of my husband's face when he saw me bleeding profusely and in agonizing pain. And then she was further traumatized by being in a restrictive state where she couldn't be sure if she would have another opportunity to conceive through IVF. And my concern is that these restrictive laws interfere with the patient physician relationship and prevent physicians from providing what is standard of care. And one of the things that is a real barrier to that with reproductive health care is laws that are not based on medicine or scientific fact, the personhood bills, which says that a fertilized egg is a child.

And as a pediatrician, you know, the definition of a child is not a fertilized egg. Right. But because of that legal definition, it means that physicians who provide routine IVF care could potentially be prosecuted, incarcerated, pay huge fines. It criminalizes IVF. And so patients can't get the care they need.

Physicians can't provide the care that their patients need. Right. And you mentioned one thing that certainly resonates so loudly in that the rights of that fertilized egg seem to supplant the rights of a childbearing woman and Right. And really make no sense for anyone involved. There's a critical gap that we're seeing here where the common sense of how people make choices, how physicians are able to provide care safely for patients and and in a way that's both ethical and scientific and and really compassionate.

This gap is is something that seems to be widening when it comes to what the opposition would like to really what kind of health care they would like to create for patients. And why is this gap so important to magnify right now? Oh, absolutely. The greatest danger to Americans' health is project 2025. And so things like abortion restrictions, which keep people from getting the medical care they need and put women's lives in danger.

And so the medical care that a woman needs if she has a miscarriage is the is abortion care. And so by not providing that to her, you send people to the emergency room parking lot to lead enough to become life threatening so that they can then get the medical care they need. With all of this, given your experience, given your your expertise in the fertility field, given your years of experience in in many different venues, and particularly with the 2 incredibly powerful contrasting stories that that you shared. But how compelling is it right now, and how imperative is it right now to think about the choices that we're making in this election and what, vice president Harris is is bringing to the table here? I I sometimes joke.

Prior to 2016, I was a voter. After 2016, I was an advocate. And so I have every confidence that vice president Harris will protect reproductive health. She made a very strong statement that the government should not interfere in a woman's right to control her health care. And I am confident that she will not.

I am not confident that the other candidate will. And the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists a few years ago put out published a statement about the dangers of legislative interference in medical care. And so when something is evidence based medical care, there shouldn't be legislation that prohibits it. And the legislation often not only prohibits the care, it even prohibits counseling about the care. That's right.

And sometimes even requires providers to give misleading and inaccurate information. For instance, in one state, at one point, they had to counsel patients that abortion increased the risk of breast cancer, which was never true.

I'm Suhas Gondi, and I am a resident physician in internal medicine and primary care in Boston. So in the end, with all of the health care crossroads and intersections, it may simply boil down to cost and care. How do we bring down costs and who actually cares about you?

Doctor Suhas Gondi, a health policy expert and one of the founders of Doctors for Harris, shares his summative experiences and insights. I just finished up actually, 2 weeks in our ICU, and I could honestly walk you through every single one of those patients and explain to you why they're better off because of Biden Harris administration and because of health policies that are patient centered and that are designed to improve access. And Mhmm. Importantly, because they treat health and access to health care as a right and not a privilege. One patient in particular, stands out, a patient with severe asthma who, unfortunately, you know, came to us in the ICU because the severity of the asthma exacerbation was such that it was so hard for for her to breathe that she needed to be intubated and and connected to the ventilator.

Why did why did the exacerbation get so bad? Well, one of the reasons was that she hadn't been able to access her maintenance inhalers, and that's because they're unaffordable. And it's been a priority of the Biden Harris administration to make inhalers to control asthma and COPD more affordable, taking on the big pharma companies, taking on the the patents, and making sure that people have access to the medications they need to stay healthy and in her case, to breathe. You know, you have a front row seat to this, right, where we are putting patients before profits. We are seeing the systemic benefits of great policy, but we're also seeing the gaps and the shortcomings.

So as someone who lives at many different intersections, right, you have some great experience with, thinking a lot about policy and systems and and how things can get better for patients, not just at the higher sort of systemic and governmental policy level, but also at the bedside. So is there a particular gap that comes to mind when you're thinking about this, when you're rounding on your patients, when you're actually deeply invested in developing relationships with your patients and you're hearing these stories firsthand about why it's so difficult for patients to be well in this in this health care system currently? Yeah. It comes back to how unaffordable that we have rendered basic health care in this country. We have made it such that people of varying ranges of income, it's not just low income, struggle to to get the the medication, the office visits, the specialist visits that, that they need.

And, you know, there's so many so many reasons for that from the way our insurance system is structured to, the way that as as you put it, profits have been centered over over patients and increasing financialization of of the health system viewing patients as, you know, assets that generate revenue as opposed to people whose lives are we are entrusted with. And I think insulin is such a such a great example, how when you have the right people in government with the right intentions, how policy can be a tremendous instrument of good. You know, we saw insulin price the spike insulin, you know, having been discovered decades ago. We saw the the out of pocket cost of insulins skyrocketing in the in the decades prior to the Biden Harris administration taking over from the Trump administration. And we saw them take that on, with the IRA and capping insulin at at $35 per month for people who, are on Medicare.

And we have data to show that that led to more people filling their scripts. Right? This is, this is a pretty tight callable pathway between between policy and between what our patients need, and what our patients need to stay out of the ER, keep their their a one c's controlled, and to to stay healthy. On that note, VP Harris and, governor Walz are committed to to making efforts to expand that $35 insulin cap, not just to people on Medicare, but to but to everyone. You know, we live in this environment every day where we are agnostic to the patient that comes to the bed bedside of who they are, what their background is.

We hold that sort of trust very sacred, and we develop that trust. Why now, at this very, very kind of critical juncture in our in our nation's history, why should people entrust their vote with vice president Harris? Vice president Harris has shown time and again that he cares about you, about you, the patient, you, the voter. And I think that to me is the fundamental reason why the vice president deserves our votes and our support. You know, there are a lot of people who think that we as doctors should stay out of the political sphere, that we should that, you know, our position is remain.

Exactly. As far as trusted members, you know, of health profession, we shouldn't be wading into the politics. We shouldn't be endorsing, you know, political candidates. My response to that is, how can we not when our health is on the ballot? You know?

We'll stay out of politics once politicians get out of our exam rooms, get out of our hospitals, and get out of our relationships, with our with our patients. And I think that's why I feel a responsibility to do this work. It's why I hope that, you know, other doctors, clinicians, health professionals across the country will will similarly, you know, get get off the sidelines and and throw throw our hat into this ring because it it matters to our patients. Me, it's part and parcel of our jobs.

So indeed, let's get off the sidelines.

Doctors, patients, legislators, policymakers, and voters in our communities. Please go to I will vote dot com, doctors for harris.com, and Kamala Harris dot com to learn more. Till next time, I'm.