Rarely does one find in politics a candidate who has thought through his positions. Even rarer still is the 33 year old who has done so. Yet, independent gubernatorial candidate Dr. Luis Daniel Munoz has studied the pros and cons of issues affecting the state and he has come up with viable solutions. By any measure he is an impressive candidate. Here are the reasons why:

Dr. Munoz has a medical degree and is thoroughly conversant with health care policy and the future of medicine. In fact, he decided against becoming a direct medical services provider and instead has focused on its innovative delivery. For him is was a choice between staying on the paved road or paving the road. He noted, for example, that Rhode Island has excellent surgeons but that robots are the present and future tools for surgery. “I looked at what doctors would be doing 30 years from now," he said. "More and more technology will replace hands on surgery. I decided to focus on improving that technology for the benefit of patients. I work very hard at perfecting medical imaging, including laser technology.”

Dr. Munoz is particularly attuned to helping diagnose childhood illnesses even before he and his wife brought into the world a new baby girl, Juliet Daniela Munoz.

As governor he would focus, inter alia, on truly innovative economic development which would spur on the health care devices and nanotechnology of the future. As part of his own journey following his internship at the Connecticut Children’s Medical Center, he has studied medicine in Japan right after the tsunami there, and also the model of health care delivery in Israel. He has learned the best models for health care coverage and delivery and that experience would assist him in making sure that Rhode Islanders are covered in effective ways. He is marinated in the culture of social responsibility from an early age, and has worked out viable and cost-effective ways to deliver services.

He believes that the number one health crisis today is opioid addiction. Addicts need to be steered away from criminalization toward rehabilitation. Community health clinics need financial support to assess, triage, and deliver health care cost-effectively. He has plans to maintain elderly people in their homes or in assisted living as a preference rather than nursing home care.

Dr. Munoz, however, is not a one issue candidate, although health care dominates the cost of government. He would, for example, redirect the Commerce Commission where half of its work would focus on statewide economic development and half of its budget would be directed to municipalities to develop businesses locally.

As a product of the public school system starting in the fourth grade in Central Falls and at Rhode Island College, whose science department he hails as first rate, he emphasizes that educational excellence is about building people, not buildings, so they can compete with the necessary job skills. He wants a revamped school curriculum to emphasize civic service and entrepreneurship. Adult education should focus on the "culture skills", e.g. language and retraining programs for Cape Verdeans and other communities, to train for jobs.

His many ideas, which will be brought out during the campaign, are fresh and well thought out. Voters should give him a listen!

Arlene Violet is an attorney and former Rhode Island Attorney General.