Suneel Gupta, an Indian-origin entrepreneur and younger brother of America’s top medical correspondent Dr Sanjay Gupta of the CNN, is seeking to enter the House of Representative from Michigan.
Running on a platform of expanding health-care access and lowering costs, he is among the five candidates running 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, 38, said, if elected, his priority would be to make quality and affordable health care available to all.
He comes from an illustrious Indian-American family from Michigan. His mother Damyanti Gupta was recently featured by the Time magazine for being the first female engineer with a degree at Ford Motor Company. Gupta’s parents, Subhash and Damyanti Gupta, moved from India to Novi, Michigan, to work as engineers for Ford Motor Company.
Suneel, in a recent statement, had said that he had 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, Suneel’s brother--Dr Sanjay Gupta--helped him start Rise, a health-care company that uses technology to reduce the cost of quality health care. After the startup served over 1,000 patients, US 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 practise in front of the US Supreme Court. He has been married for eight years to Leena Rao, a journalist who most recently wrote for Fortune Magazine.
“Fifty years ago, Ford Motor Company hired my mom, making her the company’s first female engineer. That job allowed my parents to put food on the table and help pay for our education. It gave us our Michigan values--hard work, integrity and service,” Suneel said.
“Those values shape who I am today as a family man and an entrepreneur. I was born and raised in Michigan’s 11th district, and I’m ready to fight for the working families of this community that gave my family so very much,” he said.
Releasing his first ad, Gupta said, “I’m the only candidate in the race with hands-on health-care experience,” he said.
