Come March, residents of the 7th congressional district will vote in a Democratic primary on the successor to Congressman Danny Davis, who, in July, announced he was retiring after nearly 30 years.
One candidate running for the seat is Dr. Thomas Fisher. The Greek Town resident is an emergency medicine physician at the University of Chicago Medicine. He said his experience as a doctor in an emergency room for nearly 25 years largely inspired him to run for Congress.
“I can treat illness, and I can stop the bleeding when people come to me, but I can’t fix what’s coming down the pipe,” Fisher said. “I’ve seen too much suffering at this point to remain silent and to continue to simply patch up the wounds once they’ve already been inflicted. I’ve decided to move upstream to bring moral leadership and public service to try to solve the things that bring waves of my neighbors to me, sick and injured.”
As Fisher helps patients affected by gun violence, housing insecurity, mental health crises and insurance denials, he’s seen how the country’s systems and policies have put the lives of his neighbors in jeopardy every day.
“I have seen all of the ills that have been created by society,” Fisher said. “I’ve held the hands of families who are grieving after a young person has been unexpectedly shot down. I know the toll of fentanyl when it hits our street . . . I know what health is, and I know the stakes.”
That health spans beyond the care Fisher provides on the South Side, where he grew up.
While, if elected, Fisher would advocate for lower health care costs and expanding access to care, he said the way to address the root causes of the poor health that he sees daily is by “creating an economy that honors our lives.”
“Right now, we see costs for things like housing, utilities and food higher than ever, while wages have stagnated. Folks can’t get ahead. They can’t plan for the future or stay healthy,” Fisher said. “We can bring federal dollars to those problems.”
Fisher also wants to see more funding for public education. He attended Kenwood Academy High School, and his mother worked as a social worker at Chicago Public Schools for over 30 years.
“I know the value of a public education, and we need those things bolstered so that we’re not dependent on property taxes and the vagaries of one community having great public schools, and the next not because of how those things are funded,” Fisher said. He added that community colleges and public universities need more federal money too.
Fisher also has experience on the boards of the Cook County Forest Preserve, where he worked to incorporate people into local green spaces and improve environmental justice, and Chicago Public Media, where he helped bolster public sources of information.
“I am not an elected official. I see this as public service,” Fisher said of running for Congress. “This is an opportunity to bring expertise from outside of government to government at a moment of crisis.”
Creating and reimagining policy
During Barack Obama’s administration in 2010, Fisher was chosen to be a White House Fellow and was paid to assist senior White House staff and government officials by participating in interagency meetings or designing and implementing policies.
Fisher experienced his fellowship while the Affordable Care Act was rolling out, and he delivered the 2011 HHS Action Plan to Reduce Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities. Fisher has both helped write policies and implemented Affordable Care Act policies for Blue Cross plans in five states.
“It’s given me an understanding of how these systems are created, how they’re deployed, how they work, how they don’t work, the language and the communities that are involved,” Fisher said.
Nearly a decade ago, while leading NextLevel Health — a former Medicaid managed care provider once based on Chicago’s West Side — Fisher helped launch a Medicaid plan that aligned incentives to address health inequities.
“We grew to almost 80,000 members, we hired hundreds of people from the community, and we were based in the community to solve those problems,” he said.
But today, Medicaid cuts are impending with the passing of President Donald Trump’s One, Big, Beautiful Bill in July.
The federal government is “creating plans right now that are going to kick millions off of health insurance, and it’s going to have disruptive effects — not only to the people who need health care, but to the providers that serve people,” Fisher said. He added that there will likely be hospital closures, which will affect everybody, not just those who lose health care coverage.
Fisher’s goal isn’t to revisit the way things were before Trump took office, but rather to reimagine the possibilities of policy.
“How do we go forward and build a future we’ve never had before? One that honors our humanity, one that anticipates challenges of the environment, one that centers our bodies and lives, one that creates equity,” Fisher said. “This may be one of those moments where when we see so much disruption, we have the opportunity to again create something we’ve never seen.”
The first example Fisher gives is universal health care. He added that, if elected, he’d like to explore emulating how California is working with generic medication companies to make affordable insulin. Fisher also mentions one of his colleagues who is working on a policy that makes gun manufacturers and sellers pay into a victim fund for those impacted by crimes using the guns that they made or sold.
“I would love to support policies like that moving forward,” he said. The federal government is “destroying things that we need. And that might mean that there will be an opportunity — with vision, moral leadership and courage — for us to build something transformative in the near future.”
Though Fisher said he admires Congressman Danny Davis’ tenure, he said his mindset about reimagining policies would set him apart from his hypothetical predecessor.
“Congressman Davis has large shoes to fill,” Fisher said, specifically mentioning his successes with the Second Chance Act that improved reentry resources and in creating health care accessibility.
“I am impressed by the legacy of leadership and service that he’s delivered,” Fisher said. “I’d love to update those experiences with my specific knowledge, network and track record in both health care and public service in the private sector because we need to build something that we’ve never seen before. We need to build a future.”
Fisher has been endorsed by the 314 Action Fund, the only national organization that helps recruit, train and elect doctors and scientists.
According to the Federal Election Commission, other candidates who are running for Davis’ seat in the Democratic primary include Richard Boykin, Jerico J. Brown, Melissa Conyears-Ervin, Jason Friedman, La Shawn Ford, Rory Hoskins, Danica Leigh, Tekita Martinez, John McCombs and Emelia Rosie — who’s not registered with a political party.
“I’m encouraged by the fact that there are so many people running,” Fisher said. “That is the sign of a robust democracy.”
