1. “The most important issues facing the nation today are related to our safety and security, including our medical, economic, and physical safety. As a nation, we are being challenged by COVID-19 and its effect on all aspects of our daily life. We need to continue to rally all the resources at all disposal and work together to ensure that we get our country safely moving forward toward a return to normal.”
2. “In my campaign I am most passionate and excited about the opportunity to be a voice in D.C. that truly represents the people and being a voice for doing the right thing. I am not afraid to challenge my Congressional colleagues on both sides of the aisle to focus on passing thoughtful and sensible legislation that reflects what is best for the entire nation.”
3. “As a member of Congress, I will work to ensure that insurance companies, especially large, for-profit companies, do not get to use their size and large profits to take advantage of frontline physicians or small and rural hospitals. As physicians, we also need to educate and remind our patients that we are their advocates in the health care policy debate. I will push for insurance companies to be more transparent in how health care premium dollars are being spent and how physicians are not the real problem in the increasing cost of health care in this country.”

Rich McCormick, MD, MBA (R, candidate GA-7)

Dr. McCormick is a graduate of Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta, where he was also student body president. He completed a residency in emergency medicine through Emory while training at Grady Hospital in Atlanta. He received his MBA from National University in La Jolla, California. With over 20 years in the U.S. Marine Corps and Navy, Dr. McCormick served in combat zones in Africa, the Persian Gulf, and Afghanistan. As a Marine, he flew helicopters and taught at Georgia Tech and Morehouse College as the Marine officer instructor. In the Navy, Dr. McCormick earned the rank of commander and served as the department head for the emergency medicine department in Afghanistan. At the completion of his military medicine career, Dr. McCormick returned to private clinical practice and currently practices at Gwinnett Medical Center and Northside Hospital in Georgia.

1. “I believe that we have to stop the march toward thinking that government is the solution to our problems. We have been asking government to fix the problems that they created. Government may be well intentioned, but too much government regulation has reduced physician compensation and given physicians less control over the most important part of health care…the doctor-patient relationship.”
2. “We need to keep government ‘right-sized’ by reducing government expansion and by expanding the private-sector economy by deregulation. Only by growing the private-sector economy can the United States be a country that people will want to come to because of economic opportunity, freedom, and the potential for upward mobility.”
3. “We must think outside the box and replace the antiquated system of health care insurance. The current system of health care insurance has no pricing transparency, limits flexibility, and creates no incentives for patient choice. By reducing government regulation, we can encourage more competition. We need to increase care delivery directly from physicians to patients, reducing the cost of intermediaries in health care delivery.”

Rep. Raul Ruiz, MD, MPH, MPP  (D, incumbent CA-36)

Dr. Ruiz grew up in the community of Coachella, California, where both of his parents were farmworkers.

Dr. Ruiz achieved his lifelong dream of becoming a physician through public education. After graduating from Coachella Valley High School, Dr. Ruiz graduated magna cum laude from UCLA in Los Angeles. He went on to Harvard University in Boston, where he earned his medical degree as well as a masters of public policy from the Kennedy School of Government and a masters of public health from the School of Public Health, becoming the first Latino to earn three graduate degrees from Harvard University. He completed his residency in emergency medicine at the University of Pittsburgh and a fellowship in international emergency medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.

Dr. Ruiz worked full-time as an emergency physician until he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, where he serves on the House Energy & Commerce Committee. Dr. Ruiz has sponsored many bills important to emergency medicine, including surprise medical billing, mental illness care, and veterans’ care.