At Politico Magazine, writer and physician James Hamblin tried to answer the question "Who is Dr. Ben Carson?" After describing how he became a "darling of the right-wing media" after calling out President Obama at a prayer breakfast, Hamblin tried to explain how he speaks in "over the top" language about America in decline.
But Hamblin really let loose when he insisted that despite Dr. Carson's surgical talent, his opposition to Obamacare is based on "sentiment," not a "rational pespective. His talent "does not imply an elevated or even rational perspective on health-care policy."
Carson speaks from a unique position of stature when it comes to health care. At 33, he was the youngest division leader ever at Johns Hopkins, and for almost three decades he served as the medical center’s director for pediatric neurosurgery. He received international recognition in 1987 as the first surgeon to successfully separate conjoined twins attached at the head in a particular way (a congenital condition known as occipital craniopagus). After an extremely high-risk 22-hour surgery, the twins, who had been flown from Germany to Baltimore so that Carson could perform the operation, both amazingly survived.
His undeniable talent as a surgeon puts weight behind his criticisms of Obamacare, which often spring from generalized anti-big-government sentiment. “By turning over control of the most important thing you have, your health, to the government and to bureaucrats, you have fundamentally changed the power structure of this nation,” he told me. “If you just go back and read the neo-Marxists, you’ll see why getting control of health care was so important to them; it was the only way to make a population dependent.” It’s from this fear that Carson draws his objections to the Affordable Care Act—not from his medical expertise. Being world-renowned for brain surgery speaks to deft eye-hand coordination, tireless work ethic and perceptive diagnostic skill in the realm of childhood brain anomalies. It does not imply an elevated or even rational perspective on health-care policy.
