POLITICS
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Physician Quigg Aims To Heal Health Care
Navy Veteran Keatley Urges Global U.S. Role
Congressional candidate Rebecca Quigg is ready to pit her expertise on the Affordable Care Act and health policy against any of her 17 rivals. “We need a doctor in the House who wants to give health care coverage to patients in America, who wants to fight to keep the law we have, improve it and expand it to cover everyone,” said Quigg, who lives in East Cobb and has worked the past four years as a health reform advocate and ACA consultant, from helping people enroll for health coverage to forcing insurers to meet their coverage requirements. “There couldn’t be a more perfect time for someone like me to run.” Quigg ended her 25-year career as a cardiologist and moved with her younger son, Gregory, to the Atlanta area three years ago from Chicago, where she directed the heart transplant program she created at Northwestern University. Her goal was to find the right school for Gregory, who has a central auditory processing disorder. Pope High School proved to be the perfect fit because of its special education program and its competition marching band, in which he played tenor saxophone. He will graduate in May, then study engineering in college. Her son’s experience has demonstrated to Quigg the value of public education and some of the deficiencies requiring more funding, such as the counseling departments. But it was health care that pulled her into Democratic politics for the first time. She attended a fall conference at which Republican Rep. Tom Price and Sen. Johnny Isakson talked about the need to raise the retirement age to save Social Security, an idea Quigg rejects. Quigg discussed her disagreement with Price after the meeting, then asked him why he voted against letting Medicare negotiate drug prices, as Medicaid and the Department of Veterans Affairs do. Price cited the high research and development costs paid by drugmakers; Quigg responded with the huge profits they make. The discussion stuck with her when Donald Trump picked Price as his health and human services secretary. Quigg opposes most of what Trump says and does, but she said putting Price in charge of the nation’s health care might be his worst move.
None of the candidates for the 6th Congressional District seat has served in the Israel Defense Forces, but Democrat Richard Keatley has come closest. During his seven years as an engineering officer in the U.S. Navy, while his frigate, the USS Donald B. Berry, was in port in Haifa, he served a week on an Israeli navy gunboat rather than do maintenance on the boilers. “It was really small. I got a bit seasick because it was so small,” the Tucker resident said. But the experience gave him a good understanding of Israel’s vulnerable position, and his time with the Israeli crew of about 15 sailors helped him appreciate the variety of views about the settlements and the conflict with the Palestinians. “I believe that the two-state solution is … the only viable way to preserve the Jewish state without forcing (out) all of the Palestinians,” Keatley said. Unlike some of his opponents, he said the United States does have a role as a mediator in trying to bring peace to Israel and the Palestinians, much as Jimmy Carter helped Israel and Egypt reach the Camp David Accords. That role extends globally for the world’s largest military and economic force, said Keatley, whose Navy service included time with NATO. “For 70 years the United States has been a stabilizing force,” he said. “No one wants to be the policeman of the world; that’s a negative way to look at it. But our leadership role has helped bring about the spread of democracy in countries where despotism reigned.” Having not only served overseas in the Navy, but also studied for several years in Naples and Paris, Keatley has a broad view of America’s role. A tendency toward isolationism under President Donald Trump worries him, as does a plan to throw more money at the military just to look strong. He’s concerned that the United States is turning away vulnerable refugees and labeling them undesirable even though they’re the least likely people to be terrorists. He cited the parallel fellow Democrat RuthE Levy drew to the fate of Jewish refugees who unsuccessfully fled the Nazis. “Part of being a leader in the world is doing the right thing and helping people who need help,” Keatley said. Helping people applies at home
APRIL14 ▪ 2017
By Michael Jacobs mjacobs@atljewishtimes.com
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Rebecca Quigg moved to East Cobb so her son could attend Pope High School.
So she organized a downtown protest of his nomination Jan. 15. When she got a positive response to her comments about health care a few days later at a protest outside Price’s Roswell office, she decided to run for his seat. “I will speak out as soon as I’m there about what the truth is,” Quigg said, criticizing ACA misinformation from members of Congress. “The American people have been lied to.” She said premiums have skyrocketed because ACA opponents have refused to enforce the law’s cap on annual increases. But the two Democratic physicians in the House have been silent, Quigg said, and the 16 Republican physicians have gone along with repeal efforts. “The thought that we would lose all those benefits is very overwhelming, and I’m set to fight for this,” said Quigg, a Pittsburgh native who had to go into debt to put herself through Washington and Jefferson College and Penn State’s medical school. “I know the facts of this law.” The race to replace Price is her first political battle, but Quigg has her parents as examples of fighting for what’s right. Her father served in the Army Air Forces in World War II, then became an iron worker, and her mother won equal pay for equal work. As the daughter of a veteran and as a physician who worked in Department of Veterans Affairs hospitals, Quigg is adamant about getting veterans the best care possible. She said she also is passionate about resisting Trump administration efforts such as undermining public education, delaying or stopping Muslim refugees, and dismantling the Environmental Protection Agency, but health care remains the heart of her campaign. “If Georgia wants a person in Congress that happens to be a physician and an expert on this law, that can actually speak directly to the issues rather than gather from other people who may not be correct,” she said, “then they should elect me.” ■
By Michael Jacobs mjacobs@atljewishtimes.com
The open 6th District seat accelerated Richard Keatley’s plans to run for Congress.
as well for the Georgia State professor, who has taught Italian and French here since 2004. Keatley used a Navy ROTC scholarship to earn an engineering degree from Virginia Tech, then supported himself through independent study and a doctoral program at Yale. He’d like to see a national program to trade debt-free college for service. An engineering student might participate in a summer co-op with public works projects, then work with a public or nonprofit agency for a couple years after college, for example. In addition to avoiding student debt and accomplishing needed public service, the program would ensure that students are learning skills that align with employment opportunities. In addition, “national service helps the idea of national identity,” Keatley said. “People become more American by being exposed to people from different places.” If elected, he will have one staffer assigned to do nothing but handle problems and concerns brought by military veterans, who too often run into stall tactics from the Department of Veterans Affairs. Keatley was planning to run against Tom Price in 2018 after being frustrated by the feeble Democratic opposition in 2014 and 2016. When Price resigned to become health and human services secretary, those plans were accelerated. He thought the jungle primary of all 18 candidates on one ballot would benefit an outsider like himself, but he got a lesson in party politics when Democratic institutions and leaders lined up behind Jon Ossoff, who has raised $8.3 million so far. Most observers assume Ossoff will make the likely runoff between the top two vote-getters, but that second-place person could be a Republican, a Democrat or an independent. “I hope it’s me and Jon,” Keatley said. “Then we’ll see if they want a young whippersnapper, or they want a veteran.” ■