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Are America’s physicians inherently biased against minority patients? It’s a central claim of the radical activists who want to fundamentally remake healthcare along divisive, discriminatory lines. Yet there’s no credible evidence that such bias exists. In fact, the psychology test behind this claim has been roundly repudiated.
The “Implicit Association Test” (IAT) purports to show that people have deep-seated racial bias, regardless of whether they realize it. Developed a few decades ago, the test has been used to cast doubt on the fairness of many institutions and industries, healthcare included. Yet only recently have scholars and experts begun to critically evaluate the test’s quality. Their findings: The IAT test is anything but accurate.
A thorough review of the literature makes clear: “The IAT falls far short of the quality-control standards normally expected of psychological instruments. [It] is a noisy, unreliable measure that correlates far too weakly with any real-world outcomes.” Furthermore, it “was released to the public and excitedly publicized long before it had been fully validated in the rigorous, careful way normally demanded by the field of psychology.”
The IAT test’s shortcomings are so severe that even its own creators have acknowledged its insufficiency. Yet despite these facts, activists continue to claim that physicians are inherently biased and healthcare must be revolutionized to root out that bias.
This radical, fact-free campaign must be stopped. While bias is a possibility, physicians’ professionalism is a reality. They work tirelessly to meet the needs of each and every patient, regardless of skin color. They should be applauded, not attacked, and healthcare should be improved, not undermined.
What’s the main mission of the federal Department of Health and Human Services? On paper, it’s supposed to be “improving the health, safety, and well-being of America.” But HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra has a different, and much more radical, answer: Put race at the center of health care.
Look no further than Sec. Becerra’s press conference on the anniversary of his confirmation. He said that “health equity pervades everything” his department is doing. While that may sound harmless, it is a fundamental rejection of core American principles, and a fundamental assault on the health and well-being HHS is supposed to promote. “Health equity” requires looking at everything through the lens of race. Worse, it demands that race determine patients’ access to and quality of care, based on the false assumption that different health outcomes are the result of supposedly racist doctors .
The proof is in HHS’ new policy of bribing doctors with higher Medicare payments to develop “anti-racism plans.” In practice, that means providing preferential care to minority patients, while deprioritizing care for others. By eroding doctors’ ability to provide personalized care to the patient in front of them, HHS is injuring people’s health.
The White House has also directed HHS to develop a “Health Equity Task Force.” The task force will soon issue recommendations centered on “mitigating inequities” and “preventing such inequities in the future.” You can bet the recommendations will involve more race-based care and less focus on the specific needs of individual patients.
None of this fits with the real mission of HHS. It should be striving to give everyone access to world-class health care, while unleashing the innovation that will make our medical system even better. Instead, under Sec. Becerra, HHS is focused on some patients to the exclusion of others. Whatever else that is, it isn’t the health care that Americans expect and deserve.
The American Medical Association (AMA) has officially endorsed racial discrimination. That’s the takeaway from a recent legal filing by the AMA, which represents more than 240,000 doctors. It marks a dangerous turn for the storied institution, which is undermining patient well-being while claiming to promote it.
The AMA’s filing is in support of New York’s policy requiring medical professionals to allocate scarce COVID-19 treatments on the basis of race. Such a policy was previously unheard of, for good reason: It forces doctors to change their standard of care based on a patient’s skin color. The name for that is discrimination, and it has no place in the doctor’s office.
The AMA’s filing is filled with “anti-racist” jargon. It tries to justify the New York policy on the grounds that “numerous social drivers of health” – including “inequitable living, working, and other life conditions” – “have historically prevented people of color, and Black individuals in particular, from having the same opportunities to attain good physical health as white individuals.” Yet there is no credible evidence that biased care by physicians contributes to the disparities in clinical outcomes for minority patients, so there is no justification for doling out treatments based on race. Doctors want and work hard to provide the best and most personalized care to all their patients. They don’t want to help some at the expense of others.
The AMA is supporting New York even after other states, like Minnesota and Utah, have dropped similar discriminatory policies. The AMA should be ashamed. And racial discrimination in health care should be stopped, for the sake of patients of every color.
The Hippocratic Oath is at the heart of health care. New physicians have always repeated its promise to “do no harm.” Yet radical activism is leading to efforts to “update” the oath – and ultimately undermine it.
Look no further than Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons. At the start of the most recent school year, 140 incoming medical students donned their doctor’s coats and made a solemn pledge. Yet unlike every class that came before, these medical students wrote their own version of the Hippocratic Oath.
Instead of promising to “do no harm,” these future doctors vowed to “disrupt… injustices.” They also said: “I acknowledge the past and present failures of medicine to abide by its obligation to do no harm and affirm the need to address systemic issues.” This language reflects medical education’s embrace of Critical Race Theory, which holds that doctors should give preferential treatment to patients based on skin color, while deprioritizing care for others.
Such discrimination is the way to do harm – the opposite of a doctor’s oath.
The damage will constantly be reinforced as these students progress through Columbia, which has committed to making Critical Race Theory a foundational part of its curriculum. Yet the Hippocratic Oath doesn’t need to be updated, and its core promise to “do no harm” should never be discarded. Just the opposite: Future and current physicians should be looking for new to fulfill that promise and improve patients’ lives.
The federal government wants your physician to discriminate on the basis of race – and it’s willing to bribe them to make it happen. That’s the sad reality of a new Medicare policy in effect since the start of the year.
The details are deeply disturbing. Since January 1st, 2022, the Department of Health and Human Services has offered higher Medicare reimbursement rates to doctors who “create and implement an anti-racism plan.” Anti-racism, a core component of Critical Race Theory, holds that people must be treated differently based on their skin color. In the context of health care, that means doctors must provide preferential care to minorities, while deprioritizing care for others.
This is discrimination, plain and simple – and it cuts at the heart of a doctor’s work. Doctors want to provide personalized care to the patient in front of them and anyone else who walks through their door. Yet under the tenets of anti-racism, that’s unacceptable. It says that some patients deserve better access and treatment than others, not because of their individual health needs, but because they’re part of a racial group.
Doctors don’t want that. But D.C. is pressuring them to cave. Higher reimbursement rates are a powerful motivator for medical professionals and providers, who constantly face increased costs and administrative burdens. The federal government is using the reality of this very real problem to foist another, bigger problem on doctors.
This is bribery in service of a bad cause. Doctors and patients will suffer from D.C.’s attempt to force discrimination on health care.
Medical school has a simple, essential mission: Train the next generation of physicians to treat individual patients and improve lives. But that mission is in danger. Future physicians are being taught to see patients through the lens of race, which can only lead to discrimination and worse care.
Look no further than the 25 most prestigious medical schools – everything from Harvard to Yale to Stanford to the Mayo Clinic. At least 23 require that students take classes or go through training grounded in “Critical Race Theory.” At least 16 of these medical schools have said they will redesign their entire curriculum around Critical Race Theory, which holds that physicians are biased and health care is systemically racist. The goal is to make medical students “anti-racist.”
Yet anti-racism is discrimination in disguise. At its core is the idea that health care should prioritize minority populations – and deprioritize others. That leads to preferential treatment to patients of some races and rationed care based on skin color. This is already happening at some hospitals, and as current medical students graduate, it will spread nationwide.
Medical students need to learn that different populations have different health needs, which is crucial to providing the best treatment to individual patients. They should never learn that it’s acceptable to lump patients into different groups and provide different levels of care on that basis. Yet that’s exactly what’s happening at America’s top medical schools, and they are far from the only ones. Patient health and well-being depend on future physicians learning medicine – not activism.
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