Soon after Congress voted to cut Medicaid and food assistance for millions of people in the Republican tax and spending bill last summer, physician Thomas Fisher headed to the emergency room for his regular shift.
The ER was already chaos.
"There were people in every room, there were people in the hallway, there were people who had been waiting to be admitted. And that's not just my ER. That's every ER," he told USA TODAY. "It's one thing to accept, as I do, that there's a certain amount of suffering in life that's just the human condition. It's another thing to accept that people in government are making that worse intentionally."
He felt like he had to do something in response to the vote. Run for public office.
Fisher, 51, is now competing with more than a dozen Democrats in the March 17 primary for a chance to represent Chicago's downtown and westside.
