The reluctance of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump to be fully transparent about their health records highlights the need for a more accountable way of determining whether a person seeking the presidency is medically fit to serve.
The reluctance of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump to be fully transparent about their health records highlights the need for a more accountable way of determining whether a person seeking the presidency is medically fit to serve.
Clinton’s just-disclosed bout of pneumonia is not, in itself, the issue. But Clinton would be 69 upon taking office in January. Donald Trump would be 70 — our oldest president ever. Yet, we know precious little about the health of either that is independently verifiable.
That’s a problem.
Arthur Caplan, a bioethicist formerly with the University of Minnesota’s Center for Biomedical Ethics, called for candidates to submit to a physical administered by an independent team of physicians who could screen for ailments that might affect their ability to perform their duties. Another, perhaps more palatable, option would be for candidates to allow such a panel to review their medical records and release a summary.
In any case, this election cycle has shown the need for a more rigorous physical vetting of candidates.
Trump submitted a goofy doctor’s note proclaiming his lab results to be “astonishingly excellent” and, in language no doctor uses, stating the Republican presidential nominee “unequivocally would be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency.”
Uh, is there a little proof of that?
On the other hand, Clinton suffered at various times a broken elbow, a concussion with resulting double vision, persistent coughing and pneumonia. Many of these were attributed to fatigue and dehydration.
Fair enough; any of those things could happen to anyone. But coupled with Clinton’s unfortunate and pronounced tendency toward secrecy, the American public can be forgiven for wondering whether some critical bit of information is being withheld.
It all adds up to another bizarre couple of days in a campaign that has been filled with them. Clinton was already dealing with the fallout from having described half of her rival’s supporters — in one of the more memorable phrases of this election — as being a “basket of deplorables.”
Now, instead of the speech about the economy Clinton planned to give Tuesday in California, we most likely will face another week of endless speculation about candidate health, more vituperation about the language used to describe one another’s supporters and even less clarity about where the candidates would lead us.
There is no way to compel presidential candidates to prove their physical health, but there should be new, bipartisan expectations set for the amount of verifiable information available.
There is too much power vested in a president to do otherwise.
— Star Tribune (Minneapolis)