President Obama has nominated Dr. Vivek Murthy, a hospitalist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and a staunch defender of the Affordable Care Act, to be the nation’s top doctor.
Dr. Murthy has been a strong supporter of President Obama and his health reform efforts since 2008. He is co-founder and president of Doctors for America, a group that was originally launched in 2008 as Doctors for Obama to directly support Mr. Obama’s election.
Over the last few years, Doctors for America has deployed its physician members around the country to argue for the benefits of the Affordable Care Act. The group filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court in support of upholding the ACA’s individual insurance mandate.
Courtesy White House
Dr. Vivek Murthy shaking hands with President Obama.
During the 2012 campaign, Dr. Murthy was a volunteer adviser to President Obama’s campaign.
In an interview with this news organization in 2012, Dr. Murthy said he wasn’t politically active for most of his life. But in the last few years, he entered politics as a way to push his views on how to reform health care. He said that it is important for physicians to be involved in politics because of their unique view of the health care system.
"As individual physicians and also as leaders in our community, we can play a role in helping to give more voice to the perspective of physicians and patients," he said in the interview. "If these perspectives are missing as our health care system is being redesigned then we’re not going to have a system that ultimately works."
Dr. Murthy also has focused on public health. In 1995, he co-founded VISIONS Worldwide, a nonprofit organization involved in HIV/AIDS education in India and the United States. And in 2011, President Obama appointed him to serve on the Advisory Group on Prevention, Health Promotion, and Integrative and Public Health.
If confirmed by the Senate, Dr. Murthy would replace acting Surgeon General Boris D. Lushniak and serve a 4-year term.
mschneider@frontlinemedcom.com
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