Indian-American Suneel Gupta running for US Congress

WASHINGTON: Suneel Gupta, a 38-year-old Indian-American lawyer and entrepreneur, is seeking to enter the House of Representatives from Michigan.

Running on a platform of expanding health-care access and lowering costs, he is among five candidates contesting in the Democratic primary from the 11th Congressional District of Michigan.

The winner of the August 7 Democratic primary would contest for this open seat after incumbent David Trott of the Republican party announced that he was not seeking a re-election.

Suneel, the younger brother of Emmy award-winning journalist and doctor Sanjay Gupta, said, if elected, his priority would be to make quality and affordable health-care available to all.

"At a time when Donald Trump wants to cut Medicare by over USD 500 billion, I am the candidate in this race with hands-on healthcare experience who has stood up to the pharmaceutical companies who are ripping off families and seniors and I will fight him every step of the way," he said on his campaign website.

Suneel comes from an illustrious Indian-American family from Michigan. His parents, Subhash and Damyanti Gupta, moved from India to the US in the 1960s.

His mother was recently featured by the Time magazine for being the first female engineer at the Ford Motor Company.

Suneel, in a recent statement, had said that he has broken the fundraising record by raising more than USD 1.3 million; which is highest among all the candidates running for the Congress from the seat.

In 2012, Gupta's brother helped him start Rise, a company that uses technology to reduce the cost of quality health-care.

After the startup served over 1,000 patients, former first lady Michelle Obama asked Rise to be her team's official technology partner.

Through this public-private partnership, together they delivered health coaching to lower-income areas of the country.

In 2016, Michael Bloomberg convened a bi-partisan commission on the Future of Work, and Suneel was asked to join and bring Rise's lessons to policymakers.

Suneel holds an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management and a law degree from Northwestern Law School. He was sworn in by Justice Roberts to practice in front of the US Supreme Court.

Releasing his first ad, Gupta had said, "I am the candidate in the race with hands-on health-care experience.