Doctors As Legislators: Is that a good idea?

Health Policy Nov 6, 2026• By MIKE MAGEE As we entered the 2026 Mid-terms, twenty physicians held seats in Congress, four in the Senate and 16 in the House, a record for physicians in the highest offices of the land. (I provide a list below.) In the wake of Tuesday’s remarkable display of democracy, many have shined a light on several new elected physicians, including Sen. Abdul El-Sayed (D-Mich.), Sen. Annie Andrews (D-S.C.), and notably the election of a woman physician as governor of Ohio, Gov. Amy Acton (D-Ohio). They will join, come January, two standing physician senators – John Barrasso (R-WY) and Rand Paul (R-KY), and leave behind two other Republican Senators, Bill Cassidy (R-LA) and Roger Marshall (R-KS), both mired in controversy. Physician leaders. Is this a good thing for our nation, struggling with an inequitable and prohibitively expensive health care system, a frayed and collapsing public health infrastructure, and a reckless vaccine policy launched by a public official whose own family members describe him as, well, “crazy.” My short answer is “On the whole with notable exceptions, yes.” In search of an answer why, I go back to a speech I gave, now two decades ago,...