This is the fourth in a series of stories on the debate Wednesday night.
By Molly Weisner
In the first televised debate between North Carolina Congressional District 9 candidates Dan McCready, the Democrat, and Republican Dan Bishop Wednesday evening, issues on healthcare ran the gamut, from Medicaid expansion to prescription drugs.
The issue of health care has become no less heated as the Sept. 10 election nears. But the recent debate presented many of the same arguments from both camps.
The main argument on the topic came down to entrepreneur McCready claiming Bishop is backed by Big Pharma, and Bishop claiming McCready price gouges on prescription drugs. On their own, neither are completely true, so we provided some context.
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One topic of controversy between the candidates were two health care bills that affect drug costs.
McCready said Bishop cast the only vote, from either party, against banning pharmacy gag rules on prescription drugs.
That is true.
These gag rules, as a previous story from our team debunked, prevent pharmacists from informing patients of lower-cost alternatives when they are available.
While it’s also true that Bishop voted against the second reading of the Pharmacy Patient Fair Practices Act, he responded by saying he voted for the companion bill, Senate Bill 384.
On whether Bishop’s campaign is supported by Big Pharma, Bishop said that McCready has received “tens of thousands of dollars in donations from executives of Big Pharma.” Bishop then said that he had received none.
Those claims are also not completely factual. Drug companies like Eli Lilly and Pfizer have donated to the NRCC, according to FEC records. Then, the NRCC spent money on behalf of Bishop’s campaign, so McCready’s claim requires context, but it’s also not without some hypocrisy.
Pharmaceutical industries have also contributed to the DCCC, which also fed over $600,000 into McCready’s campaign, according to the Charlotte Observer.
Bishop also called out the pharmaceutical stock that McCready had sold.
Bishop is right that that McCready had, and sold, stock from several different healthcare or pharmaceutical companies in 2017. Bishop criticized McCready during Wednesday’s debate for benefitting from those assets.
McCready said in response that when his wife’s father died, he left her pharmaceutical stock.
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On the issue of cancer treatments, McCready called Bishop out again on his lack of support for the N.C. Cancer Treatment Fairness Act, which makes insurance companies cover oral and intravenous chemotherapy drugs equally.
McCready was accurate in this claim since Bishop was one of 10 votes against the bill in 2015.
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The Affordable Care Act was up next. McCready jumped on the claim that Bishop’s health care plan does not support preexisting conditions. This was a repeat statement from the Democrat and one we’ve debunked as misleading.
It’s also old news that Bishop sponsored the legislation in question, Senate Bill 86, which doesn’t necessarily include all the same benefits that some plans under the Affordable Care Act do. Bishop claims that bill allows small-business owners and the self-employed to receive lower-cost premiums through group plans.
Bishop also said that the bill was supported by Democrats, which is also true because it did receive bipartisan support.
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Finally, on the Affordable Care Act, Bishop has said that he doesn’t support Obamacare, calling it a “disaster” during the debate. The Republican said he would use market forces to bring health care costs down instead of “price-fixing.”
In response, McCready cited town hall meetings he hosted during his campaign and the “600,000 North Carolinians [that] are without Medicaid expansion, 200,000 of whom today cannot get coverage otherwise because of state Senator Bishop.”
According to the AP, Cooper had a proposal that would expand Medicaid to about that many North Carolinians.
But the 200,000 that McCready references, according to a study authored by Leighton Ku, a professor at George Washington University, are actually buying health insurance on behalf of the ACA, though they would otherwise be covered by Medicaid expansion.
So, again, McCready’s claim require some context, although his numbers check out.
