When President Obama said at a recent news conference he has the best health care in the world, he wasn’t exaggerating.
The White House medical unit with a current staff of four doctors and even more nurses and physicians’ assistants is just steps from his office, ready to provide free treatment to him and his family.
During the president’s travels, a doctor and nurse ride in a limousine in his motorcade, and there’s also an emergency medical technician in an ambulance.
Air Force One is stocked with equipment to rapidly assemble an on-board operating room. On overseas trips, two medical teams usually travel with the president, one on the plane and one pre-positioned on the ground so the president will always have a “rested” doctor and nurse at the ready.
The first family receives VIP treatment at military hospitals. And Obama has virtually instant access to medical specialists that few, if any, Americans could duplicate.
“If the president comes to us this morning with a mole on his cheek, a dermatologist will be seeing him today,” said Dr. Rob Darling, a retired Navy captain who was a White House physician for President Bill Clinton.
White House physicians provide free medical coverage for the first family and the vice president’s family, as well as urgent treatment to White House staff and visitors as needed.
During the Clinton administration, a White House doctor and nurse typically traveled with the first lady when she went overseas separately from the president, though she did not have a medical team embedded in her everyday entourage as the president does, Darling said. A White House spokesman declined to describe the current arrangements for Michelle Obama.
The personal physicians and access to military hospitals come on top of a choice of 10 family health insurance options that Obama receives along with all other federal employees.
White House spokesman Reid Cherlin declined to identify which health insurance plan the Obama family has chosen. But under the federal Blue Cross Blue Shield plan — the most popular among government employees — a doctor’s visit costs $20 and generic drugs are $10.
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DID YOU KNOW?
Much of the extraordinary medical support provided to the president and his family is related to protecting them if an attack occurs. The doctor and nurse who travel with the president’s motorcade are positioned just outside the “kill zone,” as close to him as possible while still far enough away to likely survive a bomb blast targeting the presidential limousine.
