In September, cancer survivor and organ transplant recipient Jack Foriska stood next to me at a press conference in Rose Park and told reporters what happened to his prescriptions on Jan. 1. His co-pay for one jumped from zero to $399 for a 30-day supply. Another went from zero to $1,790. So he stopped taking them.
“These decisions by Congress are putting my life at risk,” he said. “I want to live.”
Jack didn’t do anything wrong. He didn’t vote to cut health coverage so Washington could pay for tax breaks for people who were already doing fine. Congress made that choice, and Jack got the bill. In Washington, talk is cheap. For everyone else, nothing is.
I hear some version of his story everywhere I go. A family in Salt Lake County now needs about $187,000 a year to afford the median home, and when they finally make an offer, they’re bidding against Wall Street firms paying cash. Tariffs cost the average American family more than $1,700 this year. I don’t think anybody here voted for that expense, either.
I know something about bills. My mom raised six kids on a schoolteacher’s salary while managing chronic health problems, and there were stretches when we couldn’t pay the power company or the doctor. I started working odd jobs at 11 years old to help.
When a premium jumps or the rent goes up, I don’t see a policy debate. I see my mom at the kitchen table, deciding which bills get paid and which ones don’t.
I’ve watched young couples who grew up here run the numbers and decide they can’t stay. People in Utah could put down roots here, whether their family arrived seven generations ago or seven months ago. Now, we’re pricing our own children out of it.
Not every cost shows up on a bill. Some come from keeping your word. I swore an oath to the Constitution, the document that protects your right to speak, to worship and to vote no matter who holds power. A right that you defend only when your side is winning isn’t protected at all. When keeping that oath meant voting to impeach a president, I knew it would likely cost me the election. I cast that vote anyway, and I’d cast it again today.
Don’t just take my word for it. Here’s what I’ve done:
As Salt Lake County mayor, I worked with Republican leaders to expand Medicaid and get more kids into early childhood education, because those problems didn’t care who had an R or a D next to their name.
In Congress, when my own party’s leaders loaded a COVID bill with partisan, unrelated wish-list spending, I voted no and worked to make the legislation better.
And, for the last five years, I’ve worked with cities on one problem: getting homes built that working families can actually afford.
If elected, here’s what I’ll do first:
Restore the health coverage Congress cut, so the next Jack doesn’t have to ration his medicine, and protect Medicaid from the next round of cuts.
Give buyers earning an average salary a real path to a first home and fight for affordable rent that a full-time paycheck can cover.
Make Congress take back its power over tariffs, so families stop paying for them at the register.
And ban members of Congress from trading individual stocks, because you shouldn’t have to wonder whose interests your representative is serving.
It’s in writing, so you can hold me to it.
A lot of us are frustrated with both parties right now, and we should be. We’ve been promised plenty by people who never followed through.
Let me speak directly to my Republican neighbors. Does your party still represent you? Where’s your line? Is it when your premium goes up again? When another celebrity investor’s data center gets first claim on water from a lake we’re already losing? When your kids can’t afford to live in the state they grew up in? When the Constitution stops protecting your family? I’m inviting you to join a coalition that has decided enough is enough. If you don’t, I’ll work just as hard for you anyway.
To the Democrats, Independents and Republicans still making up their minds: We won’t agree on everything; there’s no politician you should agree with 100% of the time. Set the party label aside for a minute and ask who will do what’s right when it’s hard, and who already has.
Character is one thing you can’t fake, and the one thing you can’t learn on the job. Trust gets earned the slow way, by keeping your word year after year. I’ve kept mine, and I’ll keep doing it.
I’m Ben McAdams, and I’m asking for your vote.
(Ben McAdams) Ben McAdams is a seventh-generation Utahn, former Salt Lake County Mayor and member of Congress.
Ben McAdams is a seventh-generation Utahn, former Salt Lake County Mayor and member of Congress.
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