Democrat announces candidacy in new 13th Congressional District

SPRINGFIELD -- Dr. David Gill hopes the fourth time - combined with a new congressional map - will be the charm.

Gill, 51, an emergency room doctor from Bloomington, ran for Congress against U.S. Rep. Tim Johnson, R-Urbana, in 2004, 2006, and 2010. Although he says the existing 15th District, where he lost, is strongly Republican, Gill calls the new 13th is "far more balanced" and winnable by a Democrat.

The new 13th includes part of Springfield.

"Tim Johnson has been representing his friends in Washington, not the voters here in central Illinois," Gill said in a statement announcing his run for the Democratic nomination in the 2012 primary. "Nobody I talk to in the district agrees with Tim's extreme vote to end Medicare as we know it. His extreme voting record is out of touch with central Illinois."

Phil Bloomer, spokesman for Johnson, said Johnson voted in the House this year for a budget pushed by U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., but "said at the time and often since that he wasn't in complete agreement with everything in it, including the approach to Medicare reform."

"To call this an 'extreme vote to end Medicare as we know it' is a gross mischaracterization," Bloomer said.

Gill is certified in family practice as well as emergency medicine, and said he relates to the concerns of rural and small town voters. He said he is pro-gun, as an example.

In an interview, Gill said he became involved in politics initially because he came to think "people in Washington don't understand health care and health-care financing." The health reform plan championed by President Barack Obama and passed by Congress moved the country "off the status quo," he said, but "I don't like the fact that it provides 32 million more customers for the private health industry."

Gill said he's been a member of Physicians for a National Health Program, an organization that supports single-payer national health insurance, for more than 20 years. He envisions a tax, "something far smaller than the premiums and co-pays and deductibles that people are paying today," to fund the system.

"You would be enrolled in Medicare at birth, and it would be an even better Medicare program than we have today," he said.

Gill has degrees in mathematics and medicine from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Other Democrats who might run in the 13th include former state Rep. Jay Hoffman of Collsinville and attorney Mark Lee, who practices in Springfield.

Bernard Schoenburg can be reached at (217) 788-1540.