Senate Candidate Dr. Val Arkoosh Calls For Additional Compensation For COVID-19 Frontline Workers
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- Mehmet Oz, a Republican, is not the only medical doctor running for the U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania.
As political editor Jon Delano reports, there is a 'Democratic' physician in the race as well, and her views are at odds with the celebrity doctor.
Dr. Val Arkoosh, a Democrat, is not as well-known as Dr. Oz, but after 28 years as a practicing obstetric anesthesiologist in Philadelphia, Arkoosh turned to politics to become chair of the state's third-largest county.
The Montgomery County commissioner said the state needs a doctor in the Senate, but it must be the right one.
"While I was fighting to make sure that southeastern Pennsylvania had our fair share of vaccines once they became available, he was on TV promoting faked COVID treatments," Arkoosh told KDKA political editor Jon Delano.
Now Arkoosh is promoting her COVID-19 Frontline Workers Health Care Fund, noting that frontline workers -- from nurses and health care workers to grocery and retail clerks to transit workers to public safety officials who have been on the job for nearly two years -- deserve additional compensation.
"What this fund would do is make sure that these folks have all their medical costs covered until they reach the age of Medicare eligibility," Arkoosh said.
"We are seeing more and more of these folks developing symptoms of long COVID or other chronic complications from the disease. They need to know that we're going to be there for them," the Democrat added.
Arkoosh said this fund should be patterned after the 9/11 Victims Compensation Fund. She's seeking the Democratic nomination for Senate in a race that includes fellow Democrats Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, U.S. Rep. Conor Lamb and State Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta.
The primary is 21 weeks away.
