Physician activism in American politics: The opposition to the Price nomination

Although a substantial literature considers physician advocacy fundamental to medical professionalism, only a minority of physicians actually pursue it. We analyze the characteristics of 6,402 physicians who engaged in political advocacy by signing the Clinician Action Network's 2016 petition objecting to the American Medical Association's endorsement of the nomination of Tom Price as Secretary of Health and Human Services. These physicians were matched to the NPI (all physicians) and PECOS (largely Medicare payment recipients) directories. Physicians in the directories were matched to publicly disclosed campaign contributions. Contributions are used to measure political preferences expressed on a liberal-conservative scale. We document a pronounced generational realignment in the politics of the medical profession, with recent graduates trending sharply Democratic. Petition signing vs. non-signing is responsive to gender, specialty, geographic location, personal liberal-conservative preferences and year of graduation from medical school. Petition signers were more likely to be women (62% of signers versus 34% of non-signers), recent medical school graduates (58% of signers versus 42% of non-signers), and in lower-paying specialties (27% of signers versus 12% of non-signers). The changing face of physician advocacy has important implications for understanding how the medical profession is likely to influence health care policy in coming decades.