Page 10 - Delaware Medical Journal - November/December 2018
P. 10
PRESIDENT’S PAGE
This is the nature of our political system and, for better or worse, PACs have become engrained in the fabric of our political process.
directly correlated with both its strength
contributions made to the PAC by that membership. The PAC then uses those four activities described above a reality.
Because of the checks and balances
of our political process, a PAC does
not and cannot “buy” votes and/
or guarantee a particular desired outcome. However, a robust PAC may increase access to enable those critical conversations with both legislators and policy-makers about important issues. There’s an old political adage that says, “if you are not at the table, you’re on the menu.” The activities of a robust PAC place and keep you at the table.
There are both federal and individual state requirements governing PAC activities, and some states don’t permit them. Delaware does and, as indicated
by both our local elections here in Delaware and the recent national mid- term elections, both PAC activity and
the funding necessary to make them effective are increasing in our small state.
REFERENCE
JAMA. 2018;320(14): 1437-1438
Our traditional concept of “Delaware local politics” is and will continue to be tested by PACs in the evolving political environment.
In our state, there’s only one organization with a PAC that works exclusively for physicians: the Medical Society of Delaware and its PAC, DELPAC.
DELPAC was established to ensure physicians will continue to have a place at the table in this new and constantly changing political environment. As physicians, we have the responsibility to play an important role in the continuing decisions within our political, economic, or social systems and institutions that impact our patients and the practice of medicine in Delaware. There is much
at stake, with much to lose if we fail to act. DELPAC provides the vehicle for us to do so in a collective and focused way with one voice.
I hope you will agree that this work is vitally important and must be continued. Beyond that, it is also my fervent hope that you will recognize the value of political advocacy by physicians and
that you will both join and contribute to DELPAC if you didn’t already do so at our recent Annual Meeting in November.
Donald M. Berwick, MD, MPP, former Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) in the Obama administration, makes
an important observation about the relationship between physicians, politics, and healthcare in his editorial in the October 9, 2018 edition of the Journal
of the American Medical Association (JAMA): “Physicians who want politics out of healthcare are going to be disappointed. If they value the principles to which they pledged as healers, then they ignore politics at their peril and their patients’. The sidelines are safe places for neither.”
To make things right for our English majors and Shakespearean scholars, I will restate the question of physician political advocacy in Delaware in its more classic form: “To be or not to be, that is the question.”
For more information about joining and contributing to DELPAC, please go to https://reg.planetreg.com/DELPAC2018.
Richard W. Henderson, MD
President, Medical Society of Delaware
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Del Med J | November/December 2018 | Vol. 90 | No. 8
