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LaPolitics: Surgeon general is a new position for Louisiana. How do your duties differ from those of the secretary of the Department of Health?
Louisiana Surgeon General Ralph Abraham: The secretary of LDH handles the business aspects, like Medicaid and the money that is dispersed to our managed care organizations. The surgeon general steers public health policy. The other thing that comes under the surgeon general is emergency services. When we have a hurricane or a weather event, we are tasked with making sure that hospitals keep running and have generators and oxygen if needed. And if they have to be moved, then we’re involved in that aspect also.
What issues have you been most focused on?
We’re looking at chronic issues that Louisiana ranks so poorly on, such as diabetes, hypertension, congestive heart failure and obesity, and making it easier for patients to access resources that LDH has available to control that sugar, control that hypertension and mitigate the risk that comes with those types of chronic diseases. When we get a better handle on these chronic disease states, people are going to be healthier and economic costs are going to come down considerably in our health care sector.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is an environmental lawyer and anti-vaccine activist who made a political deal with President Donald Trump to get a cabinet position. Why do you believe he is a good fit to lead the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services?
Because of the way he is approaching health care from a whole different perspective. Let’s look at our national obesity level. Let’s look at our national chronic disease level. We spend more per capita than any other nation in the world, but if you look at where we rank in the world on health care, we’re down in the middle of the herd. RFK, he has got on the health side, I think, some very good ideas. I may not agree with him politically on some other issues, but I’m willing to watch and hopefully help him stir this pot in a different manner in order to get different outcomes. If we just keep doing what we’ve been doing, why would we expect anything different than what we have already?
How has the department’s vaccine policy changed, and why was it changed?
I just don’t like the seasonal mass vaccine programs where you don’t have that patient-doctor interaction. Everything has benefits, everything has risks, but our patients, our people in Louisiana and in the entire nation, they’re very intelligent. They can make an informed decision, but they have to have the information to do that. I want that patient-doctor relationship restored. We lost that during the COVID pandemic. We certainly want those childhood vaccinations to be given. We certainly want all the vaccines, wonderful vaccines out there, that need to be given. But I want that discussion between the doctor and the patient. I want the government out of my exam room. Before the pandemic, the trust in doctors was in the mid-70s. Right now, it’s less than 40%.
What will LDH ask the Legislature for this year?
What we’ve told the Legislature is that you always need more money, but we’ve got to use the money smartly. We’ve got to redirect this money to places where it’s going to matter, and whether that’s a drug interdiction, a place where people can pick up some naloxone for those overdose patients, whether we can get some of our sexually transmitted disease problems put in a hospital situation, whether we can get that maternal mother that is having some hypertension or some diabetes from having to go to the hospital and being able to be treated outpatient. What we’ve asked the Legislature to do, and they’ve been very receptive, is when they have anything that is health care related, come to us and let us at least be on the front end of developing the legislation to make that change.
There have been reports about a lack of evidence that you are a board-certified family medicine physician. What is your response to that?
Well, I’ve got a shingle hanging on the wall that says I’m board certified in the general practice of medicine and surgery, so I don’t know what else they want. We do our continuing education. I do the things that all doctors do to maintain their currency, their proficiency, their efficiency. I’ve been a flight surgeon through the Army flight schools. I don’t know what else they would want. In fact, I am talking to you right now from the clinic. I saw my last patient about 30 minutes ago.
—THEY SAID IT: “I was four inches taller when I became speaker of the House. They beat me down mercilessly.” —House Speaker Mike Johnson, on the stress of the job, during an Americans for Prosperity event
