The Health Information Voters Need From Biden and Trump

Among the most fraught questions about this election is the health of the aging candidates themselves.

President Biden is 81 and former President Donald Trump is 78; the major presidential parties have never before put forth candidates who are as old. Both men have been seen as showing signs of cognitive decline, leading to calls for greater disclosure about the health of our presidential candidates.

These arguments raise hard questions that will not be addressed in this week’s debate, but they are still increasingly timely. How much information do our politicians owe us about their health? And more broadly as our society ages, who gets to decide how old is too old? It is natural to assume that physicians might have a better understanding than other voters of how healthy either Mr. Trump or Mr. Biden is. But it’s not that simple.

The health of politicians has long been characterized by secrecy and political maneuvering (recall President Franklin Roosevelt, whose wheelchair was rarely visible in photographs). But they are even more pressing today, as social media amplifies questions about the health and fitness of public officials. Take, for instance, Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, whose health was a topic of great debate when he ran for office while recovering from a near-fatal stroke. Or former President Trump’s diagnosis of Covid in office and the attendant, and highly politicized, speculation about its severity.

This is not a surprise. So much of politics is about perception, and good health is intertwined with the perception of strength. Some of this is justified — the public should know if a presidential candidate has a high chance of dying while in office. And some of it stems from the stigma that comes with disease and old age — the way that we have long conflated sickness or disability with weakness.

It is time for us to challenge those assumptions. People are increasingly living with illnesses that were once fatal. Cancers that were once terminal can now be chronic. Conditions like heart disease can be managed. When we consider the health of political candidates, we need to take those shifting realities into consideration. It is also important to parse out the difference between a disability that requires accommodation but does not remove the ability to perform a job — blindness or using a wheelchair, for instance — and a progressive and possibly life-limiting condition. Age can be a life-limiting condition, but aging is a process we all go through.