Dwain Northey (Gen X)

The latest reporting says Donald Trump underwent examinations by 22 different specialists during his most recent presidential physical.

Now, forgive me if I’m not a medical expert, but I always thought the healthiest person in human history would require fewer doctors, not enough specialists to field a baseball team with a bullpen.

Apparently I’ve been doing health all wrong.

You see, when ordinary Americans need to see a specialist, they wait weeks or months for an appointment. They argue with insurance companies. They get referred to another doctor, who refers them to another doctor, who orders a test that insurance refuses to cover until Mercury enters retrograde and three forms are faxed to a machine built during the Reagan administration.

But Donald Trump gets 22 specialists.

Twenty-two.

That’s not a physical. That’s a medical convention.

Most 79-year-olds would consider themselves lucky if they had access to a primary care physician they liked. Donald apparently has enough specialists examining him to recreate the entire cast of a medical drama.

And remember, this is the same Donald Trump who has repeatedly been presented to us as the healthiest specimen ever to occupy the Oval Office. Not healthy for his age. Not in good shape for a man approaching eighty.

No.

We’re talking about the mythology. The legend. The man who, according to years of political storytelling, possesses boundless energy, perfect cognition, unmatched stamina, and enough vitality to personally defeat time itself.

Which naturally raises a question.

If he’s so extraordinarily healthy, why did he need 22 specialists?

I can’t wait to hear the spin.

Fox News will probably explain that Trump’s health is so magnificent that every branch of medicine demanded an opportunity to study it.

Cardiologists wanted to observe perfection.

Neurologists wanted to document the greatest brain ever assembled.

Orthopedists wanted to understand how a human spine could carry an ego of that magnitude without collapsing.

Future textbooks will apparently contain chapters titled “Trump: The Medical Miracle.”

Perhaps they’ll claim these specialists weren’t checking for problems at all. Maybe they were collecting samples for future cloning programs. Scientists from around the world gathered in awe to preserve DNA from the healthiest 79-year-old to ever walk the Earth.

Because that’s the only explanation that makes more sense than admitting that a nearly eighty-year-old man might actually require extensive medical evaluation.

The real issue isn’t even Trump himself. He’s seventy-nine. Seventy-nine-year-olds have health concerns. That’s normal. That’s reality. That’s being human.

The issue is the absurd contrast between the mythology and the facts.

We’re told he’s superhuman while simultaneously watching an army of specialists conduct examinations. We’re told he’s stronger than men decades younger while receiving levels of medical attention unavailable to virtually every American citizen.

And let’s not ignore the elephant in the examination room.

No ordinary American has access to 22 specialists for a routine physical.

Not teachers.

Not factory workers.

Not retirees living on Social Security.

Not veterans navigating the healthcare system.

Not the millions of Americans who postpone appointments because they can’t afford them.

But somehow taxpayers are helping fund a level of medical access that most citizens could never dream of receiving.

That’s the part that should irritate people regardless of party.

Because while Americans argue over deductibles, copays, and insurance networks, one politician receives what amounts to a comprehensive tour of modern medicine and then emerges to be declared the healthiest human being since the invention of the stethoscope.

Maybe he is healthy.

Maybe he’s not.

But if it takes 22 specialists to confirm you’re the healthiest man alive, perhaps the rest of us should stop pretending that’s what extraordinary health looks like.

To most Americans, extraordinary health looks like not needing 22 specialists in the first place.