Doug Chapin for Congress
August 6, 2026 · Newsletter
The One Emergency We Bill For
Imagine for a moment, you’re woken from a dead sleep to smoke detectors going off in your home. You smell smoke and immediately know something terrible is happening.
Maybe you have kids, so you move as fast as possible, heart racing, to wake them up, keep them calm, and get them out the door.
Maybe it’s just you and your pet, and in your reality this heart racing panic feels no different.
You don’t notice flames until safely outside. They are small at first, coming from a basement window. Hands shaking, you fumble with your phone finally getting it unlocked, call 9-1-1, not hearing the sirens already on their way.
You see lights bouncing off the siding of the other homes in your neighborhood and think for a moment things may not turn out so bad.
The fire engine and response crew arrive and begin to pull out their equipment, ready to get to work, when a member walks over to you and asks you a question.
You can’t hear over the commotion and ask them to say it again.
“I said, you have a $200 copay for fire protection! All copays are due at the time of response, would you like to pay with cash? Otherwise, we accept VISA or American Express!”
There’s an old saying that goes “socialism is the fire department putting out your housefire, capitalism is the insurance company denying your claim.”
Thankfully, if your house catches fire tonight, the firefighters won’t stop to ask to about a copay or coverage before they step in.
If someone breaks into your home, the police won’t check whether your credit card is on file before responding to a call.
We understand that some services are simply too important to delay.
When someone’s life is in danger, we send help.
But if that same emergency ends with an ambulance ride to the hospital, a whole new crisis has started to unfold.
Weeks later, the bills begin arriving. An ambulance bill, an emergency room bill, separate bill for the physician’s time, lab bills, imaging bills, maybe bills from specialists you never even knew treated you.
It’s the one emergency where surviving a crisis can be followed by years of financial consequences.
The type of financial consequences that can be so crippling that some end up wishing they hadn’t been saved at all.
Somewhere along the way, we let people convince us to accept this as normal.
Maybe it’s time we realize it shouldn’t be.
Health Care Shouldn’t Be a Financial Gamble
Over the course of this campaign, one thing has become increasingly clear while talking with voters across the Sixth.
People aren’t just worried about whether they have health insurance.
They’re worried about whether they can actually afford to use it.
Families push appointments because they can’t afford the deductible, parents stretch prescriptions a little longer than they should.
People try to completely ignore symptoms and hope they’ll just “go away” on their own because they’re terrified of what walking through those doors at the hospital might cost them.
This is the America we live in.
Too often preventative care turns into emergency care, not because people don’t care about their health or they are simply too busy, because they can’t afford to address problems early.
Too often are minor symptoms ignored, only to come back later far deadlier.
By the time they do finally receive treatment, they’re sicker.
The treatment is now more expensive than it was a year ago.
And everyone just keeps on paying more out of pocket, year after year.
This isn’t just a personal problem, it’s not a personal finance issue.
The entire system is the problem.
The Cost of Waiting
One of the greatest misconceptions people have about health care is that someone else’s inability to access care only affects them.
Far from it.
When someone delays being treated for diabetes, high-blood pressure, or an ear infection until it becomes an emergency, hospitals provide more uncompensated care. (What’s uncompensated care? It’s the care hospitals provide when patients simply can’t pay for them.)
Emergency rooms become more crowded, wait times skyrocket, and the costs rise across the entire health care system.
Those costs don’t simply disappear. They’re passed along through higher premiums, higher taxes, higher hospital costs, and higher prices for everyone.
It shouldn’t be a surprise that the cheapest health care is often the care that prevents someone from ending up in the emergency room in the first place.
Doug believes our health care system should reward prevention instead of making people wait until they’re too sick to stand.
FarmFest Was About More Than Politics
Doug spent time this week at Minnesota FarmFest talking with producers, farmers, and families from across our state.
Doug also took part in a Congressional Candidate Forum with incumbent and challengers alike answering questions important to the generations of farmers and producers in attendance.
Much of the conversation after Tuesday’s forum focused on Congressman Tom Emmer’s absence and comments from Rep. Pete Stauber that he was “fighting for his damn life”. Well as it turns out Tom Emmer was just fine, and Rep. Stauber’s sad attempt to cover and justify the senior Congressman’s absence was nothing more than theatrics.
Despite this, another moment earlier in the day deserves much more attention.
Ag Secretary Brooke Rollins spoke to attendees and celebrated cuts to SNAP assistance, describing them as moving millions of Americans off food assistance.
What the Secretary seems to completely miss that that Farmers don’t grow food so it can sit in storage.
They grow food to feed people.
Programs like SNAP and others like it don’t just help families put necessary food on the table in times of need. They also connect Minnesota farmers with the communities and people who need what they’re producing.
Food security is directly related to health. It cannot be a separate discussion.
Children who don’t have enough to eat struggle to learn.
Seniors who end up skipping meals are more likely to experience health complications.
Families who have to choose between buying groceries or medication make impossible decisions that no one in this country should have to make.
Helping people stay healthy begins long before they ever step foot into a waiting room.
Protecting What Matters
We’re happy to share that earlier this week, Doug received the endorsement from the Friends of the Boundary Waters Action Network, recognizing his commitment to protecting Minnesota’s public lands and outdoor heritage!
As Doug put it:
I’m honored to have the support of those who have spent decades fighting to protect this incredible place, and I’ll keep fighting alongside them in Congress.
At first glance, protecting Minnesota’s wilderness and talking about health care may seem like two completely different conversations.
Are they?
Both ask the same question: What do we choose to protect?
Clean water.
Healthy communities.
Productive family-owned farms.
Accessible health care, no matter where you live.
These simply can’t be considered partisan ideas. No healthy, functioning society can look at them that way.
They’re investments in Minnesota’s future.
The Boundary Waters belong to every Minnesotan. They do not belong to the highest bidder.
Doug believes quality health care should reflect the same principle. Everyone deserves the opportunity to live a healthy life, regardless of where they live or what they earn.
A System Built Around People
Doug has been clear throughout the campaign that he supports Medicare for All because he believes health care should focus on people, not profits.
Whether you agree with every single detail of Medicare for All or not, I think we can all agree on something much simpler.
No one should have to wonder whether they’ll be able to afford the care they need that could save their life.
No parent should have to hesitate before taking their kid to the emergency room because they’re already living paycheck to paycheck and can’t even imagine how they’d handle a hospital bill right now.
No family should lose their savings because they got sick.
No one should go into debt because they got cancer.
And not a single American deserves the nightmare of spending more time fighting paperwork and billing departments than focusing on getting better.
Let’s Build Stronger Communities
Every community reveals its values during moments of crisis.
When a fire breaks out, we don’t debate whether firefighters should respond.
When someone calls 911, we don’t ask whether they’ve earned the right to police protection.
We simply send help.
It’s well past time that we stopped and ask ourselves: why in the world did health care become the exception?
Why is it okay that one emergency where surviving the worst day of your life can leave you fighting another battle for months or years afterward?
Doug believes Minnesota, and America, can do a whole lot better than that.
This campaign has always been about building stronger communities, protecting what matters most to us, and making government work for the people it’s supposed to serve.
Health care is not just another policy debate. It’s about whether getting sick should also mean going broke.
I don’t think it should, and I don’t think most Minnesotans believe it should either.
Around the Sixth
There’s a tradition in college football where players raise four fingers at the beginning of the fourth quarter.
The message is clear:
The fourth quarter is ours.
All the prep, all the planning, and all their effort brought the team to this moment. Everyone may be tired. They may be banged up and a little worn down. But this is where the work pays off. This is when the team commits to finishing strong.
Earlier this week, Doug used that tradition to describe where this campaign stands right now.
With less than 13 weeks remaining until Election Day, we are entering the final lap of this race folks.
We started gathered on protest lines and at rallies. We organized through caucuses and conventions. We introduced this campaign to so many communities across the Sixth at parades, fairs, festivals, town halls, and thousands of front doors too.
Now it’s time to take everything we’ve built and carry it through to the finish.
That means knocking more doors, making more calls, talking with our neighbors, and continuing to SHOW UP in every corner of this district. It means reminding voters that a path to better is possible, but only if all of us help build it.
We may be approaching the final few weeks, but there’s still plenty of work to be done.
This weekend and next, Team Chapin and the Democracy Rescue Rig will be back on the road at community events across the Sixth District.
Come walk with us, meet your neighbors, and help us finish strong.
We want better.
We deserve better.
We’re ready for better.
Put those four fingers in the air. Let’s make this quarter ours, together!
Review the upcoming events below and sign up to volunteer through Team Chapin’s Mobilize Page .
District Door Knocks
This is our final round of door knocks before Minnesota’s primary election on Tuesday, August 11. Every conversation matters as we make one last push to reach voters across the Sixth District, answer questions, and remind people to make their voices heard.
Join Team Chapin for a shift, bring a charged phone and comfortable shoes, and help us finish the primary season strong!
Minnesota Primary: Tuesday, August 11
Minnesota’s primary election is this coming Tuesday, August 11th. This is your opportunity to decide which candidates will move forward to the November general election! Be sure to make a plan to participate and remind your friends, family, and neighbors to do the same!
For current, official information about the election, visit mnvotes.gov.
Every election matters. Every vote matters. Let’s show up and make our voices heard!
Closing
Communities aren’t really measured by how they treat people on their best days. They’re measured by how they respond on someone’s worst day.
We already understand this when it comes to firefighters. We get it when it comes to police officers.
We understand the same when floods hit, tornadoes touch down, or neighbors are just in need of some help.
Maybe it’s time we asked whether health care belongs in that same category.
Because getting sick shouldn’t be the one emergency that leaves you fighting two battles.
One for your health…
and the other for your financial future.
89 days until Election Day, let’s be sure to get out there and make every one of them count!
#Flipthe6th #LFG #ReadyforBetter
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