Rep. Mike Kennedy, M.D., has built his political persona on two claims: that extending Affordable Care Act subsidies is “too expensive,” and that as a doctor he lives by the oath to “do no harm.” Those claims cannot both be true. When he backs decisions that block an extension of ACA subsidies, he knows premiums will rise and coverage will vanish for families who depend on the exchanges, with predictable consequences: delayed diagnoses, skipped medications, and preventable suffering among his own constituents.
At the same time, Kennedy has no trouble demanding more money, more personnel, and more tools for immigration enforcement, including ICE — an agency repeatedly implicated in abuse, preventable deaths in custody, and even cold-blooded shootings of people on American soil. In practice, he is perfectly willing to fund machinery that harms vulnerable human beings while balking at comparatively modest investments that keep Utahns insured and alive.
Kennedy never misses a chance to remind audiences that he is a family doctor and to invoke “do no harm” when pushing to restrict care he ideologically opposes, including gender-affirming treatment for minors. But when the harm is quieter and politically inconvenient—when it is the cancer found too late, the insulin rationed, the medical bankruptcy that didn’t have to happen—his oath suddenly falls silent. That is not medical ethics; it is opportunism in a white coat.
As a Republican, a Utahn, and a physician, it is necessary to say this plainly: Mike Kennedy is betraying both his district and his oath. A doctor who chooses partisan theater, ICE expansion, and punitive policy over evidence, compassion, and the basic duty to do no harm has already forfeited the right to wrap himself in that oath on the House floor.
Anna C. Beck, Salt Lake City
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