The United States does not need a surgeon general
Jump to full article: Spartanburg (SC) Herald-Journal, 2009-07-14
Intro: President Barack Obama has chosen a woman with an interesting and admirable story to be his surgeon general, but the nation would be better off if the position were abolished. . . .
The need for the position is gone. It was created by President Ulysses Grant to care for sailors and to monitor diseases coming into the country. Those duties have been assumed by other agencies.
The surgeon general is now a political position and a national nag.
The person in that position spends a great deal of time repeating advice Americans hear from their personal physicians and their loved ones. If Americans don't stop smoking or start exercising when their own doctors and their spouses tell them to, what makes the government think they will listen to a surgeon general? . . .
Other than repeating advice we already pay our own physicians to give us, the surgeon general is a mouthpiece for White House policy.
In 2007, three former surgeons general testified to Congress that their administrations had interfered in their jobs, telling them what policies to push.
It's fine for the White House to have its own ideas and policies about health and to lobby Americans to support them, but we shouldn't have to pay for unnecessary positions to echo the president's talking points.
Abolishing the position of surgeon general won't balance the federal budget. There's not that much money involved. But it can't hurt to save a few million here and there.
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