The Doctor Will See You Now

The Central Valley has a healthcare problem and Washington keeps sending politicians.

In this episode of Blue Dog Radio, we sit down with Dr. Jasmeet Bains, a practicing family physician, current California State Assemblymember, and Blue Dog candidate for Congress in CA-22. Here we talk about what it looks like to serve a community that’s been overlooked for too long.

Before politics, Bains was treating patients in rural clinics across the Central Valley. People without insurance. Families losing coverage. Communities trying to hold it together while the system fails them.

This isn’t a conversation about healthcare in theory. It’s about what happens when it breaks in real life.

We get into her path from selling cars at her family’s dealership to becoming the only doctor in a rural town, what she’s learned serving in the Assembly, and the vote by Rep. David Valadao that ultimately pushed her to run for Congress.

At one point, she puts it plainly: “This is a life and death problem here.”

This is a different kind of candidate and a different kind of conversation.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

It really hit me hard on the realities of my community, and I really had to think about it. Really impacted me quite a bit. I have resuscitated a lot of people never on my front line.

SPEAKER_00 0:12

Welcome to Blue Dog Radio, a place for conversations with people doing the work, not just talking about it. Today's guest is Dr. Jasmine Baines, a physician, California State Assembly member, and now a Blue Dog candidate for Congress in California's 22nd district. And notably, she's never stopped being a doctor. She still works shifts in a rural clinic on weekends, seeing patients in the same community she represents. She grew up in Delano, in the Central Valley, a place that doesn't always get a lot of national attention, but sits right at the center of some of the biggest issues in the country. Before politics, she was working in rural clinics, treating patients on Medicaid, watching what happens when people lose access to care in real time. That experience, more than anything, is what shapes how she sees this race and what she thinks this district actually needs. We talk about her upbringing, her path into medicine, what pushed her into running for office, and why she believes the Central Valley has been misunderstood and left behind by both political parties. Here's our conversation with Dr. Jasmeet Baines. Dr. Baines, welcome to Blue Dog Radio. We want to give you an opportunity to introduce yourself. So you are a doctor before you're a politician, but could you tell us about where you grew up and what life in the Central Valley was like for you?

SPEAKER_02 1:42

Thank you. I'm honored to be here. I'm Dr. Jasmeet Baines. I grew up in a very small rural town by the name of Delano, California. My father worked at a dealership there as an auto mechanic. My mom was raising three kids and would work odd jobs just to keep us through college. I had my grandparents that were always keeping an eye on us. You know, growing up, I didn't see very many. I actually didn't see any women physicians in Delano. Um all the physicians there were men. I didn't see any women politicians that looked like me at that time. It wasn't something that I ever envisioned for myself growing up in a rural community to be where I am today. Um kids in Delano don't grow up thinking they're gonna be a doctor. They don't grow up thinking they're gonna be a politician. Um, most of us just grow up hoping that we make it to our 18th birthday. That's the reality of a rural of Delano that has a lot of gang violence, not the best environment. Um however, Delano is such a closed-knit community. Um, it's a community of immigrants, Hispanic, um, Filipino, and um even small to a smaller extent, the uh Indian community as well. And they all immigrated here to work and and to fulfill the American dream. And they call themselves an immigrant community. Like my parents, my mom would grow up having Filipino friends, and my dad would grow up having Hispanics, like it's just, you know, it's this beautiful mixture of colors and cultures in that area, uh on the backdrop of hard-to-reach opportunities for kids. Um, and a lot of that is improving. Um, however, not very I I can't say very many people I went to school with um are really around nowadays. Um, and for me, uh it's an honor to be able to go back and provide health care in an area like Delano. It's an honor to represent them in the assembly. Um, I am the first Delano native that's represented in the legislature.

SPEAKER_00 4:05

Did you take a second to think about the gravity of that?

SPEAKER_02 4:08

When I first got elected, I did not know the ceilings that were being broken. Um I did not know I would be the first Sikh American elected to state office. I did not know I was the first South Asian woman in the legislature. I did not know that I was the first Delano native in the legislature. I did not know that I was like the first addiction specialist on the backdrop of the fentanyl crisis, um, you know, skyrocketing in our communities. Um there was a lot of history to be made when I first won. And I honestly didn't even realize that I was making history.

SPEAKER_00 4:50

Your story has taken you a lot of places before the age of 40. You sold cars. I mean, not to mention COVID-19.

SPEAKER_02 4:58

I was on the front lines of COVID. Um I never had the privilege of going to an Ivy League med school. I went to the American University of Antigua. I was selling cars and saw the stock market crash in 2007. The one thing that I saw in this rural town of Taft was people losing access to jobs and therefore losing access to healthcare insurance. And the healthcare disparities that are created because of lack of access to insurance, because of lack of access to jobs. Um, that encouraged me to become a physician. I went back and was the only doctor at an FQHC Medicaid clinic in Taft. And I saw people lose their jobs, lose their so at that time I saw people transfer from private medical insurance to Medicaid. And I didn't sleep for six months because those medications are not covered, the referrals are not covered. I saw grown men break down in my office because their kids are not getting that continuity care. Um I saw the health care disparities of people losing access to health insurance. And this is something that's not talked about. There's a lot of stats and everything about healthcare disparities in the valley. We have some of the worst air quality. We have some of the worst stats when it comes to our SDD rates. All of that comes back to the fact that we also have the worst access to health care. We've had a lot of representatives that campaign on healthcare in this area. Not one damn thing has been done about it in this area. That's the reality. And it's high time that this area elected their physician. And when I first ran for assembly, I was off the backdrops of COVID-19. I worked with the state emergency response. I built the surge hospitals, I built the mass vaccination hospitals, I built some of the fire bases at that time because the unique thing that was happening during COVID that people were not realizing is you had the California wildfires and you had like 4,000 people collecting at a fire base. And I was brought in to help make sure that there was no COVID outbreaks in our firefighters because we had to fight the fires. I ran for assembly, got elected, was surprised on election night to see the numbers come out 60-40.

SPEAKER_00 7:35

That's a big margin anywhere, but especially in the valley.

SPEAKER_02 7:39

That's unheard of in the valley for a Democrat. Um most Democrats are winning their races by a few hundred votes, five or six hundred to win by a landslide. Um not just by a few hundred, but like 10,000, 20,000 votes. That night it made it clear to me that healthcare is a definite issue for a community like this. They elected their Medicaid physician to the assembly. And here we are. Four years later, the start of last year was insane. It's it's you know, it's a lot of work. And my mom made a promise to me that I would continue working in the clinic at the same time of being in the assembly because she's like, I don't want you to forget that you're a physician. And I didn't know how important that was until last year. And I was thinking about taking a break, but that didn't happen because LA fires hit. I got deployed out to the LA fires right away to serve because I'm still part of the state emergency response as a physician. While I was at the LA Fires, I heard about the immigration raids in my hometown of Delano. The question is, why Delano? Because it's a community of immigrants. They're proud of being a community of immigrants. It's on the when you says welcome to Delano, it says an immigrant community. I went back to my community and I see the fear on my community's faces, I see the fear on my patients' faces, and I'm like, something needs to be done. They're fearing ICE, they're fearing um Trump, they're fearing a trillion dollars cut to Medicaid. I think a lot of people did not think that David Valladello would vote for the big, beautiful bill. I think a lot of people at that time, me included, thought that he would uh do the right thing and stand up for the district, a district that has some of the highest amount of Medicaid patients in the entire country. But at a time where I was transferring people from private insurance to Medicaid, now I'm transferring them to Medicaid to nothing. I was in the clinic on Sunday, and the amount of cash pay patients are going up right now. We don't have to wait till a year to see the implications of the big beautiful bill. It's happening in real time. And last year, I kept saying I'm not gonna run for Congress. I know there's a lot of speculation, but I had zero intention. I thought David Valladell wouldn't vote for that. And he uh ended up voting for it on July 2nd, which was my 40th birthday. And I remember seeing that. And I remember going, well, looks like we're gonna run for Congress. Um, I really thought he'd do the right thing, and he did not. And this it's high time that this area actually does something about healthcare instead of just talking about it. And for that, I didn't choose this time. It chose me.

SPEAKER_00 10:51

People in Washington and nationally tend to think about California as just one big place, but the Central Valley is really different from cities like San Francisco or Los Angeles. The region sits at the intersection of some of the country's biggest policy debates, whether you got agriculture, water, energy, air quality. How do you approach those issues in a practical way that truly represents your district?

SPEAKER_02 11:16

It's a very difficult thing to do, but it's easy when you're not a part of any establishment. When I first ran for office, I was not part of either Democrat, Republican establishment. I was a Democrat lifelong. My father, my family are Democrats lifelong. Um it's the party of immigrants. Um my grandma was a proud Democrat. My father is a proud Democrat. Um, but when I first ran, I didn't know much about politics. I'll be honest. I knew everything about healthcare. I didn't know much about politics. I had just come off of COVID and seeing the disasters of that, I think something needs to be done about health care. And we need a voice that understands what rural communities go through. There's a lot of people that want to act like they know what rural communities go through, and that works at the detriment of rural communities. And when I first ran, I it it pissed off everyone. I mean, there the Democrats are mad, the Republicans are mad because they're like, who is she? Well, who does she think she is? But the beauty that you showed that I saw on elect on election night of November 2022 was a 6041 win for a Democrat in a valley seat, not because they were a Democrat, not because they were Republican, but because they were a physician. Um, and they were outside of the establishment. And one of the big votes was when I first got in was the destruction of oil and gas. And I supported uh oil, look, oil and gas spent a million dollars against me when I ran um because they didn't know who I was. I was outside of the establishment. Um, but when I got elected, I supported oil and gas jobs because of my experiences in Taft. When I saw the destruction of jobs and destructions of healthcare and people dying because of lack of access to their insulin or lack of access to critical medications. That vote, I owe my biggest loyalty and allegiance to those voters that voted me into 80 35 by 60%. I will never forget that night. And I made a promise that I will never use my position for self-interest. I will always use this to protect the voices that nobody listens to. And I made that commitment and I've made every decision based upon that commitment to this district and to these people because I don't owe any allegiance to any establishment. I own allegiance to those voters, um, and even voters that didn't vote for me. Um, I represent everyone, and that's something that I take as a very strong responsibility.

SPEAKER_00 14:12

A lot of people have qualms with aspects of life in the Central Valley, but it seems like people who are from there really want to stay. So, what do you love about your district? What do you love about your hometown? What do you love about the Central Valley?

SPEAKER_02 14:26

I love that you asked that question because I do, I love the Central Valley. I love my home. I grew up here in Delano. The Central Valley represents some of the hardest working families, hardest working people in the entire state and country. And it also sadly represents people that get left off the table. This when I see how hard my patients are working just to make ends meet, I mean, just on Sunday, there was a 68-year-old woman with her husband, who was also around the same age, that were sick, and they came in to see me. And she told me how she works in the Halo factory, right in that area of Delano, from 3 a.m. to 1 p.m. six days a week, just to put food on the table for her grandkids. At a time where most Americans are retiring and thinking about retirement, the reality is people are still trying and struggling to put food on the table for their grandkids. Um, there's no retirement for these people. They're still working and they'll continue working because this is a hard-working community. Um, the Central Valley represents some of the biggest stories of resilience. It represents some of the biggest stories of sacrifice. This is where every day I hear a new story and I get more and more inspired to fight for these people because it is an area of inspiration for me and it's my home. And I will continue fighting to protect them because I know how hard they're working. I know some of the decisions that they have to make that they shouldn't have to make in a country like America.

SPEAKER_00 16:22

Okay, so let's go back to your roots a bit more. Your parents immigrated from India, and you speak so proudly about Delano as a community of immigrants. So, what does that experience teach you about work, responsibility, and the opportunity of America?

SPEAKER_02 16:37

The immigrant ethic, work ethic is definitely something that um is studied in a lot of areas. Um it's about working hard, but there's one thing about it that is not good, and that is working through and neglecting your health. Um a lot of people get so um entrenched in the American dream and building in and building this uh story and giving their kids opportunities that they didn't have, that they do it at the detriment of neglecting their own health care. Um, some of the people that I see have some of the like end stage lung disease, um, end stage cancer, and they've been having symptoms for a long time. And this is where not having healthcare expertise works to the detriment of these people because what the big beautiful bill did was it cut a trillion dollars from Medicaid, which was preventative services for an area like this, shut clinics down. And what was told at that time by David Balladeo is I still have concerns, but I voted for it because there was$50 billion that was going to go to hospitals. No, sir. You voted to cut preventative services and let poor people go show up in a hospital to die.

SPEAKER_00 18:08

You're very aware that the Central Valley is politically diverse. Farm communities, energy workers, immigrant families, small towns, how do you build a coalition across all of those communities?

SPEAKER_02 18:19

Lead by example. There is one thing that my grandma used to always say as kids is if you want to be a leader, you gotta, you gotta lead by example. Don't stand here and lecture people what to do. Show them. Different areas. Um, I've worked in a lot of different areas in this community when it comes to like human trafficking, uh, intellectual developmental disabilities. Every time there's a problem, I got more and more entrenched on working on fixing that problem. And as a doctor, you see all of the problems, especially in an area like Taft. I I really stayed true to what my grandma was telling me is to lead by example. I'm not gonna sit here and talk about um healthcare because it's a great talking point to put down on paper to get me elected to Congress. I became a physician. I wanted to work on solutions for my community. And I led by example on that. And um I'm gonna continue leading by example because in this world, the biggest problem in politics is we got a lot of talkers. We don't got a lot of doers. There is not a D versus R problem. This is a urban versus rural problem. This is a privileged versus unprivileged problem. This is a talkers versus doers problem because a lot of people got lazy. A lot of people want to say the right things. They know exactly the keywords to say to get someone to vote for them. But they have zero in their skill set to actually produce any solutions in that. And that can be fine in other areas, but in this area that represents some of the most vulnerable communities, we don't have the liberty of having a representative that doesn't know what they're doing.

SPEAKER_00 20:26

What kind of representative do you believe California's 22nd district needs right now?

SPEAKER_02 20:31

Right now, they need a doctor. They need a physician, they need their Medicaid role physician. Absolutely. Um and I know a lot of people criticize that and they say, oh, uh, she's a one-shove pony. She thinks healthcare is all. And you know what? That's really easy to say when you have no idea about this district. This district has had some of the highest lack of access to health care insurance for decades, for decades. Um, this is an area where they need their physician to represent them. This is a life and death problem here because a lot of people are gonna die without access to health care insurance. Because I saw that during COVID, and I'm seeing that happen. What's happening today is gonna be much worse than what we saw in COVID for this community. This community needs their physician um in CA22, and there's no if and or but about that.

SPEAKER_00 21:35

A lot of people are feeling disenfranchised right now. They feel like politics has become very performative. So, what does real leadership look like instead? And how does that actually get embodied?

SPEAKER_02 21:46

What I would tell every person that want that wants to step up to the plate of being a leader um uh represent your district, know your district, understand your district. Don't act like you think you know what your district is. Continuously try to know your district and continuously fight for your district. And don't ever do it for your own self-interest. My biggest advice to every leader is if you're gonna be a leader, understand the responsibility of being a leader. You represent everyone. Even people that didn't vote for you, you still represent. Get to know them, understand them. Um, don't dismiss people. The valley's been dismissed. And I think it's a sense of privilege to dismiss the valley and look down on the valley and say, Oh, these people, you know, they don't know what's for their own good because they keep electing David Valadeo. They need to be saved. No, these people are smart. These people are smart, and they've been through a lot and are resilient to the core. Um to every leader out there. You gotta represent your district, and for that you have to understand your district and you gotta do the groundwork. Um, I didn't grow up, I didn't wake up one morning and decide I wanted to run for Congress. I woke up one morning and said, I want to be a doctor and provide healthcare in an area that has some of the highest lack of access to healthcare. And when I do a lot of like different lectures for schools, I the the kiddos always are like, hey, I want to be a politician. I'm like, I'm gonna stop it right there, kids. Um the object should not be I wanna like the ambition should not be I want to be a politician. The ambition should be what it is that you want to do. And whatever it is that you want to do for me, it was healthcare. Become the expert in that. Literally immerse yourself into your community um and get to work. You don't need a title, you don't need a title to get to work to lead. You don't nobody needs a title to lead. You can do it right now because you have a great title. And that is you are a citizen of the United States of America. Use that title, use the opportunities that have been given to you that other kids across the world don't have, and lead your community and work on those issues for community. Being a talker and not a doer happens because people don't know what to do. They got to the position, but what do we do now? Because that's all I ever aspire to be was a politician. Now I'm done. That's not gonna help lead communities forward. Um be that doer before. Work on issues in your community before and know what it is that you want to change and immerse yourself in that. And then watch your community is gonna lift you to where you need to go. You want to be lifted by your community. You don't want to tell your community what to do. You want to be uplifted by that community because they see the results of the work that you're doing.

SPEAKER_00 24:59

So when you win this race, what is the first issue you want to tackle in Congress?

SPEAKER_02 25:04

This area needs a medical school. Um, we need to grow our own doctors. I had did not get the liberty of getting into an American medical school. Um, and it was one of my bills that I had introduced and the governor signed to build a UC Kern Medical School in Curran County because of the threats to health care, because of a lot of the stuff in the big beautiful bill. Um that dream was kind of thrown off, um, um especially facing a lot of budget deficits because of federal cutbacks. Um my dream for this community is to see a medical school where those educational opportunities are provided to kids that are from this region, and seeing a robust research and innovation, robust um uh work and research in protecting workers, um, robust research in valley fever, this medical school will transform my community, and that's my biggest dream for this community.

SPEAKER_00 26:17

At its core, what does success look like for the Central Valley over the next decade?

SPEAKER_02 26:22

For me, the if I think healthcare, I breathe healthcare, I live healthcare. So every problem I will break it down to the problem being an access to healthcare. Um my biggest dream in the next 10 years is we address the access to healthcare problem. And this area, the area that has some of the worst healthcare outcomes in the entire state and country, becomes an area that has some of the best healthcare outcomes in the entire state and country. Um, where workers don't neglect their health, workers continue and are pr and are enabled to prioritize their health, and that this state and country finally realizes that protecting the health of workers is going to lead to a better economy.

SPEAKER_00 27:17

When people look back years from now, given everything you've done and what's still to come, what do you hope that they say about your leadership?

SPEAKER_02 27:26

First and foremost, I want to be valued for my expertise of being a physician. I want to be valued for, you know, a lot of times women can be so educated on paper and are still dismissed. Um I still get failed to be called a doctor all the time. But um the man is a doctor and the woman is a nurse continues to happen. Um you know, I I hope people will respect me for having a different lens, for understanding communities in a different way, and to really give me the opportunity to um speak about my experiences and you know, help people understand the valley in a different way. I would just like to be respected for the work that I've done and the experiences that I have. Beyond that, I think everybody's, you know, has their right to their own opinion about X, Y, and C. And like I said, I represent everyone. Um, I want to be respected for everything that I've done. I want to continue working hard. And I think, you know, especially in the valley, I think respect is definitely something that's hard to find in an area like this, especially when you're a brown girl that's breaking barriers and you're not used to seeing people like you at the table.

SPEAKER_00 28:49

All right. You've obviously got a busy schedule and campaigns can be brutal. What's keeping you centered right now? And who are the people in your life that keep you grounded?

SPEAKER_02 28:59

Uh, great question. Um, my puppy Chiquita is amazing. Um she came to my life uh at a moment where I really, really needed her. Um my past October, my neighbor's son was shot and killed in my front yard, and I ran out to help attempt resuscitate him. We weren't able to save him. It was a gang-related homicide at one o'clock in the morning. And I had just decided to run for Congress, and this was past I decided um in July, and this was October, and I think a couple weeks after that, um, it really hit me hard on the realities of my community, and I really had to think about it. I have resuscitated a lot of people never on my front line. And I really didn't know how to proceed forward. And Chiquita came into my life, she showed up and she gave me the inspiration to continue. My parents supported me, my mom and dad. Um, they've seen me work on a lot of tough things, they've seen me take on a lot of tough challenges, and that event could have broken me. It could have broken this race. Um, but I stayed resilient. Um my brother and sister are physicians as well, and they're amazing people, and they are my support system. Um, my sister-in-law and my nephew, who was just born this past January, Garbaz, he is the future, and he is so precious and so beautiful. Um, but there's a lot of experiences that I've gone through that have really impacted me, but it's taught me to be resilient and it's taught me to not give up, and it's you know, taught me to create a great support structure, and I really contemplated where I was in life, and that was this past October when I had to resuscitate my neighbor's son Almar Shalon, which as a legislator, I don't know how many legislators have that story.

SPEAKER_00 31:24

All right, my last question. What gives you hope right now about this country and where we're going?

SPEAKER_02 31:31

I think there's a wake up that's happening. And the wake up that's happening is happening within a lot of the immigrant communities. I think a lot of them are seeing a lot of them are having PTSD from the countries that they fled. Um my parents left a country which it was on the backdrops of 1984, in which the government had decided to destroy the entire Sikh community. Um it a lot of immigrants are having a PTSD right now, seeing um vision and feeling visions of where they fled to come to this country. And the biggest question a lot of them have is where do I go now to raise my family? If America falls to the same um authoritarian regimes that we fled, where do we go now to raise our families? Mars? Where do we go? Um and I I'm seeing that wake up across the country, and I'm glad because uh I was really worried when I saw what happened in January 6th. My experiences are different. I was in Honduras at the time of the 2018 riots that exploded because those people rioted for healthcare. I was stationed there as a physician with 30 pre-med students from Cal State Bakersfield, and we literally saw the country erupt into riots, and we were escorted to the airport, and um, there was a lot of guards that were there. These people, it was that time where the country got rid of public access to health care. And I'm seeing that happen in my country when they cut a trillion dollars for Medicaid today, flash forward 10 years. When I saw what happened in January 6th, I think that was a big wake-up call to me and a lot of people because what happened in Honduras was there was a president that decided to stay president forever. And then that country fell into uh gangs and drugs, and uh what gives me hope today is that I can do something to make sure that we preserve the American dream, and I can do something to help return America back to the American people.

SPEAKER_00 34:00

That was Dr. Jasmine Baines. There's a thorough line in that conversation that's hard to ignore, and it's this idea that a lot of the biggest problems people are facing aren't abstract. They're immediate, they're personal. They show up in exam rooms, in paychecks, and whether or not someone can actually get care when they need it. And whether you agree with her or not, what stands out is that she's coming at this from lived experience, not just theory, not just talking points. The Central Valley is one of those places that gets talked about a lot, but not always understood. And conversations like this are a chance to actually hear from someone inside of it, doing that work, trying to navigate all of those pressures in real time. If you've enjoyed this episode, share it with someone, send it to a friend, and make sure you're subscribed wherever you're listening. More conversations like this coming soon. This has been Blue Dog Radio.