Rashed Fakhruddin, president of the Islamic Center of Nashville (ICN) has endorsed Hana Farooq Ali, the Democrat candidate running for a House seat in the Tennessee General Assembly. Ali is the only Democrat running to replace Rep. Courtney Rogers, a conservative Republican who has represented District 45 since being elected in 2012. The winner of the Republican primary will run against Ali in the November general election.
On her campaign website Ali describes herself as a “trained physician focused on research and the business side of healthcare” although there is no publicly available information about where she attended medical school or whether she completed any additional training. Nor did Ali provide that information when requested by The Tennessee Star.
Her husband, Mohammad Farooq Ali, M.D. is a board certified rheumatologist who attended medical school in Pakistan and finished his training in the U.S. He is the only physician listed for a Hendersonville practice called Comprehensive Arthritis Care.
Ali has posted a recent interview she had on the Dean Obeidallah radio show during which she uses recycled talking points about the moral failure of leadership to expand Medicaid in Tennessee, the failure to address the opioid crisis and the mean-spirited (Republican) legislators who need to be replaced.
Citing Phil Bredesen’s two terms as governor, Ali claims that “passionately purple” Tennessee is at a crossroads and is ready for new representation to replace the “meanies” who won’t expand Medicaid.
She is referring to the Tennessee General Assembly members who want federal Medicaid funds block-granted without strings attached so they can best configure coverage for those who are eligible but uninsured.
The “leadership failure” Ali refers to are the legislators who stopped Haslam from taking Tennessee down the road of other states that took the federal Medicaid dollars with strings attached, expanded their state program and like Ohio, reported being 33% over budget in the first year. A new report released in February 2018 by the Foundation for Government Accountability ” reveals that higher than projected enrollment and per-person costs of ObamaCare expansion have led to billions of dollars in cost overruns. In total, ObamaCare expansion has cost taxpayers more than two and a half times as much as promised.” As a consequence, resources for the “truly needy” are compromised and state budgets are being “shattered.”
Ali, however, says that expanding Medicaid is her number one priority issue.
Ali also says that she is not running on her ethnicity which from what is known about her suggests she may actually be trying to conceal. She doesn’t even acknowledge her Muslim identity when Obeidallah asks her “what’s it like being brown and a Muslim in Tennessee?”
Instead of answering the question Ali dodges and goes into a stump speech about partisan divisiveness.
