Samir Witta

Samir Witta earned an M.D. from Charles University in 1990, a Ph.D. from the National Institutes of Health in 1995, and graduated from the University of Colorado in 2004. His career experience includes working as a physician.[1]

Who are you? Tell us about yourself.

I came to this country 27 years ago with almost nothing. My first job was at a gas station on Connecticut Avenue in Washington, D.C. I still keep that first $90 paycheck — it reminds me what this country gave me, and what it costs families to get by.

I became a scientist, then a physician, and for 25 years I have practiced oncology in Colorado, building my own clinic from the ground up. 5280 Magazine has named me a top oncologist in the Denver metro area four years running.

In an exam room, people tell you the truth — about the deductible they couldn't meet, the drug they couldn't afford, the rent and fees that kept climbing. So I didn't wait. I founded nonprofits to cover patients' premiums when illness kept them from working, assembled a team to erase deductibles for cancer patients, and started organizations to support kids in sports — which made our neighborhoods safer — and in education.

I am running as an Independent because both parties have had their turn, and neither has fixed these problems. I do not answer to a party, a caucus, or a mega-donor. I answer to the people of Colorado's 6th District.

My approach is the one I've practiced my whole career: diagnose the problem honestly, then prescribe a treatment that works — solutions that reach the kitchen table, not just the headlines.

Please list below 3 key messages of your campaign. What are the main points you want voters to remember about your goals for your time in office?

Reform healthcare. Cap out-of-pocket deductibles at $2,000, and require drug prices to reflect real science and the prices paid in the rest of the world — so no family has to choose between their health and their rent.Respect our communities with affordability. Cap rent and HOA increases, and rein in the management companies piling costs onto families until they're pushed from their homes — so working people can afford to live in the district they built.Restore a Congress that answers to people. Limit the influence of mega-donors and corporations, so representatives fight for their constituents' real struggles — not the interests writing the biggest checks

What areas of public policy are you personally passionate about?

Healthcare, because I have lived it. As an oncologist, I have sat with patients on the worst day of their lives and heard them ask, before anything else, whether they can afford to live. That is not a medical problem. It is a policy problem, and it is fixable.

Housing affordability, because it is the next thing my patients talk about: rent outpacing wages, HOA fees and management companies pushing families out of homes they already own, property taxes rising every year.

And money in politics, because it is why the first two never get solved. Insurance, pharmaceutical, and real estate money flows to both parties, and the problems they profit from never change. I run as an Independent so I owe them nothing.