U.S. Rep. Lauren Underwood (D-Naperville) who is running for re-election to represent Illinois’ 14th District, is positioning herself as a nurse with experience working with patients to treat medical conditions. But there’s no evidence she actually worked with patients.
Her biography notes that she has taught aspiring nurse practitioners in the online master’s degree program at Georgetown University, and her LinkedIn page says she’s taught students in that program since 2013. But on the candidate’s website, her biography clearly says she’s a career public servant at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. She was appointed by then President Barack Obama to a senior advisor position at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, prior to being sworn in to the 116th U.S. Congress on Jan. 3, 2019.
A campaign commercial shows Underwood dressed in hospital scrubs with a stethoscope as she greets a mother and two children in the reception area of a doctor’s office. It was all staged. The location was actually a dental office in the area where Underwood lives.
In May 2019, Carly Atchison, spokesperson for the National Republican Congressional Committee, called Underwood a “fake nurse,” questioning her experience.
After college, Underwood worked at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, assisting with the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. She prepared memos and documents for then-Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius. Underwood left that job in 2017 and returned to Naperville, but did not enter into the nursing profession. Instead, she collected unemployment for several months before deciding to run for Congress.
In November 2018, Underwood defeated incumbent U.S. Rep. Randy Hultgren (R) to represent the 14th Congressional District, including parts of Kane, Kendall, DuPage, Lake, McHenry, Will and DeKalb counties in November 2018.
Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) said in an interview with MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace that Rep. Underwood was a nurse and that in recent discussions, he thought Underwood brought a perspective that he found helpful and constructive. Underwood told NowThis Politics that she had looked into patients' eyes “when giving discharge instructions knowing they cannot afford the prescription that we’re handing to them.”
Her profile page on LinkedIn gives no indication that, although she’s registered to work as a nurse in Illinois, she ever has.
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