Eric Jones & His Health Care Misrepresentations

By Melody Fulton

Congressional candidate Eric Jones and  I share similarities. We are about the same age, we attended college in the northeast and both are in involved in health care-I went into medicine as a primary care physician and Mr. Jones became a venture capitalist doing health care startups. That is where the similarities end.

While Eric Jones raised hundreds of millions from large financial institutions seeking quick profit from newly formed health care companies, I began work seeing patients daily.

I have received campaign literature from Mr. Jones describing his “success” at lowering health care costs and expanding access to care through his new companies. I find these claims to be far from the truth.

For example, urgent care company Carbon Health Technologies where his VC company invested over $300 million was recently investigated by California Attorney General Rob Bonta. It was fined $4.4 million for illegal practice of medicine, over-billing patients and misrepresenting insurance coverage, resulting in high out-of-pocket costs. The company then filed bankruptcy. None of this was good for patients.

Another one is Maven Clinic, an online company where Mr. Jones served on the Board of Directors. Immediately after a massive $125 million funding from Jones’ company, 10% of its employees were terminated by email without explanation, including many on parental leave. This led to workplace survivor syndrome and burnout. Again, none of this was good for our health care system or patients.

All of this leads me to question Jones’ fitness to serve in public office.

By contrast I have known Congressman Thompson since my high school years. Mike Thompson works tirelessly for affordable health care, for protection of children from gun violence and for insulation of Medicare from cuts.

Don’t be fooled by Eric Jones’ slick ads and tricky campaign rhetoric.