Meet Dr. Brad
My name is Brad Cotton and I am running for the Ohio House of Representatives District 12 because Ohioans deserve better leadership and a pathway to a brighter future.
Life is a living out of our deepest values
Thanks for your interest in my campaign for the Ohio House of Representatives district 12. I wish we could sit down together and talk. You can e-mail me at roundtownquaker@hotmail.com. For 45 years on the street and the emergency department I have listened to patients and families. I would like to hear from you. For now, I tell you a little about myself and my moral commitment to social and economic justice for everyone, no exceptions.
I came of age during the 1960’s in a Quaker family. Quakers have long been committed to living ethically in loving community with all persons. I reached draft age just as the Vietnam War ended. My friend’s older brothers served. I respect them. In my family we watched the news and read the newspaper daily. I watched Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech as it happened. I marched against our involvement in Vietnam. I retain the deep belief held by my fellow peace and justice activists of the 60’s, the faith that we can make a difference, that we can make the world a better place for everyone.
I worked several years in iron and steel foundries before enrolling at Kent State University. Foundry work was hot, noisy, smoky, hard, and dangerous in those years before the Occupational Health and Safety Administration regulations. I was burned by molten steel, eventually requiring skin grafts. The union looked out for me. As your Ohio elected representative, I will look out for you and your safety.
At Kent State I worked nights as a custodian in the student center. I am told there are 6 acres of floor space there. I mopped and vacuumed all of it. I studied literature and philosophy by day. I had thought I would become a high school English teacher. I watch the 1989 film “Dead Poet’s Society” often. Whitman wrote that “ the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.” This campaign is part of my verse.
I was peacefully arrested 12 July 1977 with 194 others, including students who had been shot at Kent 4 May 1970 and their parents, hoping to block Kent from building a gym on the site of the 1970 shootings. We had practiced locked arm resistance to arrest. It was a hot day. The officers who came for me were exhausted and sweating. I had nothing against them personally. I asked my fellow protesters to disengage my arms and legs and I walked to the bus to jail.
The Kent State University Volunteer Ambulance Service was there 12 July. I reflected that I could make the world a kinder place, one patient at a time. Within a year I was an emergency medical technician ( EMT), a night shift emergency department tech at Robinson Memorial Hospital and enrolled in paramedic school in Akron and Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) studies at Kent State. I later served part-time on-call for the City of Kent Fire Department and as a volunteer firefighter. I treasure a conversation I had with Mary Ann Vecchio after the annual Kent State May 4th candlelight commemoration some years ago. Mary Ann, you may recall, was the young woman in the famous front-page photo with arms outstretched screaming over the body of Jeffrey Miller. Mary Ann is now a respiratory therapist, at peace as she brings the breath of life to her patients. Peace to you and yours.
I graduated Kent’s BSN program in 1982. I have worked in the emergency department or as a street medic since 1978. I worked 3 years as a medic for Cleveland EMS in the city’s most violent and desperate neighborhoods. I invite you to read on this site my published work “55th and Woodland”.
I went on to medical school and emergency medicine residency at The Ohio State University, receiving honors and commendations. During these 45 years I have worked on both ends of the helicopter ride, from late-night car accident scenes to urban Level One Trauma centers in Cleveland and Columbus, to tiny rural EDs in southern Ohio. I served 8 years with the US Army reserve with 2291st Army Hospital and the 256th Combat Support Hospital. I served over ten years as the EMS Medical Director for Ross County EMS. I loved the most visiting and conducting continuing education for local volunteer firefighters and EMTs. I got my start as a volunteer EMT after all. These folks are among the best that Ohio has to offer. They are great. Yet many of them voted for Trump. Even before Franklin Delano Roosevelt the Democratic Party had always been the party for the middle and working class. I will work to represent the fine hardworking folks of Ohio.
The hardest part of emergency medicine, as we are the only medical safety net in America that sees everyone regardless of their financial status, is seeing how many wonderful, working Ohioans are abandoned and left to suffer and die in our health care non-system. I am fiercely passionate about serious reform, best accomplished through the Ohio Health Care Act. Please read on this site my testimony before the Ohio House Insurance Committee.
We must also protect democracy. My opponent, Rep. Brian Stewart, is the author of HJR1, the bill which is now Issue 1 on the 8 August 2023 ballot. Issue 1 was designed to destroy Ohio women’s right to make their own health care decisions by making it nearly impossible to pass a planned pro-choice amendment. Issue One further silences you, the voter by raising insurmountable barriers to a constitutional amendment demanding that unfairly drawn districts that assure Republican dominance be dismantled—as the Ohio Supreme Curt has already ordered. All living former Ohio governors and five former Ohio Attorneys Generals and myself urge you to protect Ohio democracy and vote “NO” on 8 August.
We must make all political policy based on facts, science and justice for all, not yesterday’s ideology. I will have this website continuously updated with policy positions and explorations of values. I invite you to join with me and move Ohio forward, not back to some mythical idyllic past, but forward to a future of equal opportunity and justice for everyone. This is worth doing. This we must do. I thank you for your support.
Dr. Brad Cotton announces candidacy for Ohio House
Published in the Circleville Herald
Dr. Brad Cotton announced his candidacy in the Democratic primary for Ohio House District 12 on Wednesday.
“I am honored to announce my candidacy as a Democrat for the Ohio House of Representatives District 12 covering all of Pickaway and Madison counties and a portion of southwestern Franklin County,” he said. “I am running because the good people of our district deserve more responsive and truly representative leadership. Our Republican legislators have worked hard to override and silence our voices. Enough is enough!”
Primary Election is March 19 and Cotton is the sole Democratic candidate with state Representative Brian Stewart, a Republican who is running for re-election, and Patty Hamilton, being the GOP candidates.
Cotton touts his healthcare experience.
“Through 45 years as a street medic and emergency department RN and physician I have listened to Ohioans from Cleveland to Portsmouth during some of their toughest times,” he said.
“Our neighbors have told me about their fears of the cost of health care. Our neighbors, my barber, my server at Bob Evan’s, the clerk at Wal-Mart apologize that they can’t afford to pay the bill for the emergency department, that they are working two jobs to buy their children’s medicines while skimping on their own essential care. Our neighbors deserve care.”
Cotton continued, “So many patients tell me that they can’t afford hospitalization for their heart attack, for their critical surgery. I have had to tell many women who desperately wanted a child that they will almost certainly need an abortion to save their own life.”
Cotton took aim at state Representative Brian Stewart, who is running for re-election to District 12.
“Our Republican legislators, led by our own Rep. Brian Stewart have behaved dishonorably,” Cotton said. “Five states passed pro-choice legislation or constitutional amendments in 2022. I and other honorable Ohioans began gathering signatures to place the pro-choice amendment on the November 2023 ballot. Rep. Stewart plotted to change the rules, move the goalposts, deal from the bottom of the deck in the middle of the game.”
Cotton continued, “Stewart and other Republican legislators bet against you. Knowing that less than 10% of voters vote in August special elections, Stewart and his cronies wasted $20 million of your tax dollars hoping to make it nearly impossible for any pro-choice, or any other citizen-initiated amendment, including further anti-gerrymandering amendments, to ever get off the ground. Many of us filled the Statehouse Rotunda in protest. Rep Stewart disparaged us as just a bunch of marginal persons in t-shirts. We, the people, soundly defeated Rep Stewart’s August Issue One and spoke loudly to protect women’s rights in November. We are not done speaking, it is time to remove Stewart and other Republican legislators from office who tried to silence us. Enough is enough!”
Cotton then attacked the Republican Party, its politicians and its policies.
“Ohio Republicans do not represent us. Ohio was about 52 % Republican statewide in the last presidential election,” he said. “Ohio is one of the most unfairly gerrymandered states. Republicans control the drawing of district boundaries and thus 67 of 99 Representative seats and 26 of 33 Senate seats are Republican. Former Republican Speaker Larry Householder and Republican party leader Matt Borges were sentenced to years in jail for taking bribes from First Energy to pass HB 6, sending millions of our tax dollars to prop-up antiquated, dirty coal burning power plants (one in Indiana) and cutting funds for renewable clean energy initiatives. I support the citizens not Politicians amendment which will prevent either party from unfairly picking their voters, rather than the voters picking their legislators. Enough is enough!”
Before moving to Circleville in 1989, Cotton grew up in Lorain County and attended public schools before attending Kent State University, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing. Twelve years after graduating from Kent State, Cotton completed an MD degree and emergency medicine residency at Ohio State University. Cotton shared his passion for public education.
“Students are our greatest natural resource, we should support all students in college or trade school with free tuition,” he said. “My mother was a teacher, my son a teacher. Without teachers there is no society. Our schools must be safe places for all minorities and LGBTQ students. Our teachers must be free to teach genuine American history, as unsettling as our history is, especially regarding race and labor relations. Unsettling? My grandfather was a child laborer.”
Cotton said he worked several years in union iron and steel foundries before changing careers to medicine.
“Burned by molten steel, I was made whole by workmen’s compensation,” he said. “I spent several years as a public safety unionized paramedic on the toughest streets of Cleveland. Unions got us workmen’s compensation and made life livable for the working and middle classes.”
Cotton continued, “Republican so-called ‘trickle down’ economics has badly hurt the great majority of Ohioans. We must support our police and fire fighter/medics, recognizing their very tough jobs, monitor them for stress, educate and counsel those who may have become unsafe to minorities or the public.”
Cotton was a lieutenant in the US Army Reserve 2291st Hospital and the 256th Combat Support Hospital from 1984 to 1992.
“I was honored to work with enlistees, many from less than privileged backgrounds, using their service as a means to become medics, RNs, police, firefighters in furtherance of themselves and their community,” he said. “We all do well when public policy helps our neighbors do well.”
Cotton said spoke about his firm commitment to access to affordable health care.
“Historically, Democrats, exemplified by FDR, were the party of the middle and working classes, aka our neighbors, our common folk,” he said. “Health care is a human right. 60% of all US bankruptcies are a direct result of health care expenses. The Commonwealth international health care comparison studies show that we spend twice as much as other nations, yet with very poor results and the highest rates of our neighbors unable to afford health care and we suffer or die as a direct consequence.”
Cotton continued, “As a former executive board member of the Ohio Single Payer Action Network and the legislative affairs committee of the Ohio Chapter of the American College of Emergency Physicians and the Pickaway County Democratic Party I will never stop fighting for all of us who are or will be patients at one time or another. We all need compassionate and cost-effective improved and expanded Medicare for All through the Ohio Health Care Act, now with 20 legislative sponsors. Democrats need to stand up, be proud, speak loudly, be counted and fight for all of us by passing the Ohio Health Care Act.”
Cotton concluded his remarks by saying trust the facts and science more than ideology.
“In closing, we live in community, all of us neighbors as Jesus taught, we all have a say, and we must make public policy based on compassion, facts, truth and science, not yesterday’s ideology,” he said.
For more information about Cotton, see bradcottonfordistrict12.com.
Testimony in support of HB 440 5 December 2018
I am an emergency physician with 40 years on the street and in the emergency department (ED) since 1978. I have served as a paramedic in the streets of Cleveland, as an RN and physician in tough and busy emergency departments in Cleveland and Columbus. In keeping with the Hippocratic oath to always advocate with highest integrity for my patients I urge this legislative body to enact HB 440, and in so doing, bring compassionate and cost-effective “Medicare for All” to all Ohioans.
The emergency department is the only part of our health care non-system mandated, as we should be, by federal statute to see every patient without regard to their insurance or financial status. As such, I am up close and personal, eye to eye and heart to heart with all worthy working Ohioans abandoned by the business model of health insurance. While the Affordable Care Act aka “Obamacare” has decreased the number of uninsured by 40-50%, many, many persons cannot afford the bankruptcy inducing premiums, deductibles and co-pays. The Affordable Care Act was, after all, authored by the health insurers and Big Pharma for the purpose of keeping them firmly in control of health care delivery. The guy who fixes my car in his small business garage, my barber who cuts my admittedly few hairs, the server who waits on my wife and I at Bob Evans, these are good working Ohioans and deserve health care. Our profits-before-care system, the only one among advanced nations in the world, treats these good Ohioans as if they were throwaway disposable parts. I share their tears. I will tell you some of their stories in a moment.
My professional association, the American College of Emergency Physicians, (ACEP) reports that fully 81% of us surveyed frequently see patients seriously harmed by lack of health insurance. I submit that the 19% who do not report such either work in incredibly affluent areas, are blinded by conservative economic ideology, or are simply so busy pulling drowning swimmers from the river they haven’t looked upstream to note that it is lack of health insurance that is throwing our patients in the river in the first place. ( ACEP survey September 2015) I am proud that ACEP is also suing Anthem insurance for retroactively denying payment for emergent patient visits to the emergency department .56% of all physicians overall across all specialties support single payer health care. ( Merritt-Hawkins survey, 2017) I am passionately one of them.
“Tim” I saw twice. The first time he was suffering from atrial fibrillation, a dangerous rapid and irregular heartbeat. “Tim’s” wife and I had to convince him to accept hospital admission. “Tim” was aware that his insurance had a $10,000 dollar deductible and that his teenage girls needed braces. The necessary hospitalization financially devastated “Tim’s “family. Tim could not afford the “Eliquis” that kept blood clots from forming in his heart. I saw “Tim” again 2 months later when his heart sent a blood clot to his brain causing a catastrophic stroke. “Tim” had been worried about braces for his girls, now he can’t even talk to them. Although only in his mid forties “Tim’s” life as breadwinner and supportive family man is gone, taken away because he had, as the market theorists like to say, too much “skin in the game”.
“Bobby” is a teenage diabetic I put in the intensive care unit twice in life-threatening diabetic ketoacidosis. As far as I know “Bobby” is not yet one of the 50,000 Americans who die yearly from lack of health insurance, but like Scrooge’s “Tiny Tim”, “Bobby” will not have many more Christmases without this legislative body enacting HB 440. ( American Journal of Public Health September 2009) “Bobby’s” mother, fighting demons of her own, has trouble keeping her own head above water with chaotic frequent moves, job changes and the paperwork required to keep her Medicaid status current. Our emergency department social worker can get “Bobby” a short term supply of his expensive insulin. When this short-term solution runs out, “Bobby” is back in the ICU. One of these episodes of diabetic ketoacidosis “Bobby” will not survive. I applaud Governor Kasich’s moral decision to accept Medicaid expansion in Ohio. I urge this august body not to reverse the Affordable Care Act’s expansion of Ohio Medicaid, nor to enact further barriers to Medicaid enrollment. Better yet, enact HB 440 into law.
“Sue” was diagnosed with gallstones and discharged from an outlying southeastern Ohio emergency department and referred to a surgeon to have her gallbladder out. “Sue” and her husband have a small business cleaning office buildings and homes. She was often paid cash “under the table” and had no insurance. The surgeon demanded $200 up front to even see her for an office visit. This so often happens, I can stabilize patients in the emergency department and either admit them to the hospital if they are sick enough, or discharge home if they are too “well” for admission, either way they eventually go home, in need of further specialist’s care who often will not see them if they are uninsured. Or they can’t afford their meds. This is borne out by numerous nationwide academic studies. Such patients return to the ER sicker than they were before. “Sue” is now my patient and very, very, ill from cholecystitis and sepsis, her temperature is 104, her gallstones have totally damned up her gallbladder. She now needs emergency surgery, so much more dangerous than if she could have seen the surgeon who wanted $200 up front. Please pass HB 440.
“Sam” is a suicidal teen who will wait in my emergency department a full week before he can be placed in psychiatric hospitalization. “Pete” is having chest pain, likely he is on the way to a heart attack, but refuses hospital admission as he is concerned about the cost. “Ed’s” broken arm is now bent and doesn’t work so well, the orthopedic physician he was referred to wouldn’t see him unless he had cash up front. “Bill” is at risk of losing his job as a truck driver as he will lose his DOT certification if he doesn’t get a sleep study, but he can’t get a sleep study as he has no insurance. Is Ohio better off when “Bill” loses his job and can’t support his family? “Tina” one of my servers at Bob Evans suffers from severe osteoarthritis of her knees, she does a good job hiding the pain working for the tips she needs to support her grandkids. Like “Tina”, my wife and I are raising grandchildren because of the opioid epidemic. Unlike “Tina’s” situation I had good health insurance and was able to get knee replacements when every step in the emergency department hurt and the patients were saying “Doc, are you OK?” “Tina’s” so-called “wait time” for knee replacements will be five years, until she is 65 and can get Medicare.
There are thousands, millions of “Tims. Bobbys, Sues, Sams, Petes, Eds and Bills and Tinas “across our nation. Ohio can lead the way in doing the right thing for our citizens, for our
businesses, for us all by enacting HB 440. With all the integrity and character that sustains me through every emergency department shift I urge you as my legislators to enact HB 440.
If one is a fiscal conservative or business person the economic facts re: the cost-effectiveness of Ohio single payer are clear and cogent. 95% of Ohioans will spend far less money on healthcare, there will be slightly higher taxes yes, but this mild increase in taxes is insignificant alongside the huge savings for all gained by the disappearance of premiums, deductibles, co-pays and lowered drug costs. May I refer you to Dr. Gerald Friedman’s work “ Economic Analysis of Single Payer Health Care in Ohio: Context, Savings, Costs, Financing.” Universal healthcare systems around the world efficiently spend half the money we do, for better results.
I have presented here the moral argument as did Gov. Kasich when ordering Medicaid expansion in Ohio: “I respect the fact that you believe in small government. I do too. I also happen to know that you’re a person of faith. Now, when you die and get to the, get to the, uh, to the meeting with St. Peter, he’s probably not gonna’ ask you how much you did about keeping government small, but he’s going to ask you what you did for the poor. Better have a good answer. “ I submit that our market based healthcare non-system is like the “Titanic” sinking. The richest passengers got lifeboats, everyone else, my barber, my mechanic, my Bob Evans server were locked below decks to die. Gentlepersons, it is within your power to save the lives of thousands of good Ohioans.
I thank you for allowing me to testify before you today. I close with a 1918 quote by the esteemed American surgeon Dr. James Peter Warbasse :” Among the wealthy there now is a surfeit of doctors; among the poor, too few…. I believe that the wives of coal miners and iron workers are as worthy of the best scientific attention and the tenderest care in the hours of their need as are the wives of the rich. I believe that they should have it, not as a charity or welfare enterprise, but as a matter of social justice. It is their right.” Over a hundred years of free market healthcare has failed utterly to do the job or control costs. We propose fair, equitable healthcare through a model we have seen work well: Medicare. It is time for Medicare for All Ohioans.
