Can Bernie Sanders Get Away With Hiding His Medical Records?

[highplainsdem]

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/02/can-bernie-sanders-get-away-with-hiding-his-medical-records.html

-snipping paragraphs about Sanders promising to release "comprehensive" (Sanders' word) records and then breaking that promise-

Four days ago, NBC News had a clarifying report. Richard Kovacs, president of the American College of Cardiology, explained that there is a straightforward measure of Sanders’s heart that his campaign could release, but has not:

The indicator, called the left ventricular ejection fraction, is provided to any patient after a heart attack, Kovacs said. It’s a measure of how much blood volume the heart pushes out with an individual heartbeat, and it correlates with the risk for future cardiac events and mortality rate.

-snip-

Two important conclusions can be drawn from these events. First, Sanders is probably hiding something about his heart. You don’t simply promise to divulge information, and then retract the promise and absorb the hit from negative coverage unless the damage you’d suffer from the information itself is worse.

Second, his campaign appears to have made the Trumpian calculation that it can simply stiff-arm straightforward media requests for disclosure. It doesn’t matter if the demand is perfectly reasonable. It doesn’t even matter if it’s so reasonable that the candidate himself used to agree that he would submit to it. The more pressing question is whether Sanders’s refusal to disclose his medical records will be a template for his handling of the media in general.

Chait nailed it.

Not only does Sanders' refusal to release those records after promising to do so make it most likely that there's something very seriously wrong with his heart that he's unethically hiding from voters -- it inevitably raises questions about whether we can trust Sanders to be transparent in the future about other matters where the media and the people have every reason to expect him to be transparent.

IMO this is disqualifying.

[msongs]

1. it speaks to character nt

[highplainsdem]

17. Yes.

[ehrnst]

2. "The people do have a right to know about the health of a senator, somebody who's running for

president of the United States -- full disclosure."

“The 78-year-old Vermont senator has repeatedly promised to release his health records at some point, but he outlined a likely timeline in an interview with The Associated Press.

I want to make it comprehensive,” Sanders said in explaining the delay. “The answer is I will, probably by the end of the year.”

https://apnews.com/1d0c007e8527413faf8df9cf23a56277

Makes one wonder about the many other things he's said that "he will do"...

It seems like there is one standard for Bernie and another for everyone else, in terms of accountability for their statements and actions.

[LizBeth]

3. whether we can trust Sanders to be transparent in the future

That is the big one for me. I agree, it speaks to character. A man that will not keep his word says a lot.

[ehrnst]

8. Indeed. If there was nothing that would harm his campaign, he would release them, if only

to be able to say that he's been MORE transparent about his health, especially after the 'chest event.'

Seems like something that he'd do, if it wasn't problematic.

[LizBeth]

12. Any old person is going to be thrilled to wave a bill of good health. Sanders is not.

That tells us he is not in good health.

[TheSocialDem]

4. "Disqualifying" lol do you know who sits in the Oval Office rn?

[msongs]

5. a man who promised full disclosure then backtracked. sounds familiar nt

[ehrnst]

13. Yep. That's a low bar to clear. (nt)

[pazzyanne]

6. Yep, and we are trying to get him out last I checked. nt

[Zeus69]

9. When Sanders supporters

Use Trump behavior as justification for the actions of their preferred candidate…

[ehrnst]

10. You consider the current POTUS to be bar for a Democratic nominee to clear?

What does that say about one's standards for a candidate?

[LizBeth]

11. Why would you compare a Democrat to Trump? That is the low bar? Our Democrats hold to their

word. I can be proud of Democrats because they have ethics. Sanders rightly said it would only be fair to release records before the first vote. He is breaking his word. That is indicative of character. I do not want Trump to be the bar we stand by.

[emmaverybo]

15. Bernie is not the only choice we have.

[mcar]

7. He should not be able to

[Jirel]

14. Obviously he can.

Dump opened up that option. Many others will slide into it, in the future.

Should he? No. But I'm not really interested in deciding on a candidate based on health (as long as it's not obviously horribly bad, like Cheney's repeated heart attacks and extreme measures to keep him alive) or complaints that he won't share his HIPAA-protected medical file.