Dr. McCormick: I can be best used and bring my very unique skill set of 20 years of military service. I’ve served with the Marines, the Army, and the Navy, and I’m from an Air Force family. I’m a third-generation military pilot. I bring a lot of experience when it comes to medicine. I’m married to an oncologist who is much smarter and more experienced than I am, but I’m also an ER doc, which is kind of the conduit to all of medicine.

If you look at the two biggest items of spending in the government, it’s the military and health care. I bring a unique skill set to Congress that I think will be applicable, especially somebody who’s literally practicing medicine. I get to witness failed policy regularly and see how we can address that. My wife has to deal with pre approvals and drug pricing, monopolistic practices and pharmaceutical and insurance problems all the time, so I get to hear about it in real time. Quite frankly, this is the one race that we really have almost certainly going to have a doctor coming into the doctor’s caucus. That’s going to be a unique opportunity for another physician to be added to the doctor’s caucus.

Representative Mark Green, MD

Twitter: @repmarkgreen

What do you think your greatest accomplishment has been that has benefited emergency physicians?

Dr. Green: I basically gave the economics of emergency medicine, the economics of health care lecture to the entire Republican caucus. Because they were really going in the wrong direction. On balance billing and collective bargaining and some of the issues that hit us as emergency physicians, we really saved the No Surprises Act because they were going to put the power all in the insurance companies’ hands. By explaining how cost shifting works and the basic economics of contract medicine in a hospital, I was able to move the Republicans away from their stand and we went with the bill that was more New York style with arbitration. The problem was, of course, that the administration interpreted it incorrectly. Fortunately, a lawsuit in Texas recognizes that the intent of Congress was significantly different than the way Health and Human Services interpreted it. So, it’s still working its way through the courts. We’ll get it fixed. But, keeping that from going in the wrong direction was probably the biggest accomplishment that impacts emergency physicians that I’ve had in Congress.