This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Friday, May 15th, 2020. I'm Caleb Brown.

When you think of elective surgery, you probably think of cosmetic surgery.

That's surgery done out of vanity rather than health, but elective doesn't mean

unnecessary and maintaining prohibitions on elective surgeries during this

pandemic can have very real costs. Jeff Singer is a surgeon and a senior fellow at the Cato Institute we spoke last week.

You are in Arizona, the governor is Doug Ducey.

What, how has this governor treated your profession, which is physician?

Well, first I'd like to say that as effective May 1st, Governor Ducey lifted his ban that was in place in place for about six weeks on elective surgery.

Unfortunately, in many other states, similar bands were put in place and remain in place and this has

significantly impacted other people who don't have COVID you You know there are other ways you can die

besides getting COVID-19 and so unfortunately a lot of the general public thinks

when they hear the word elective procedures or

elective surgery they think that means unnecessary it doesn't mean that it just

means that you can elect when you want to get it done because it's not an emergency

and there's a whole spectrum of some elective things

need to be done fairly soon. Others could wait a while. So in my profession, my specialty, for example, of general surgery, if somebody has a mass that needs to be biopsied because it could be cancerous, well that's something that doesn't have to be done this second but it should be done in the next

within the next several days whereas if and then there are some people who have

gallbladder conditions that just are mildly uncomfortable and could be scheduled at a convenient time, but others are severe enough where the person can't even eat and they're losing weight and there's a risk that a stone can escape from the gallbladder and block the liver.

So those things you don't have to do again as an emergency, but you need to get it done fairly quickly.

And, you know, across the different specialties uh there for example heart patients

whose cardiologist may feel he may see certain signs that are worrisome and recommends

a cardiac catheterization which is a way of checking the blood vessels of the heart and it's in this particular situation might not be an emergency where it would be if you're presenting to the emergency room with a heart attack.

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