Story by Molly Weisner and Ari Sen
In the North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District race, health care feels like an elusive platform.
Toward the beginning of the campaign, neither Dan Bishop nor Dan McCready seemed to have taken a particularly detailed stance on the issue – and both pointed at the other, claiming they had no details and were obfuscating with important issues.
So, here’s what we do know.
Initial claims
The campaign site of Bishop, R-Mecklenburg, doesn’t explicitly mention plans for health care reform on his issues page.
Nailing down McCready’s positions on other issues has been tricky, according to Bishop and Bishop’s backers, who have said McCready has responded with vague responses. Bishop said in a WCCB interview on June 14 that McCready doesn’t answer questions “forthright.”
McCready’s page laments rising health care costs and “partisan games,” and his solutions cite some strategies to lower prescription payments, to strengthen Medicare and to stand up to insurance companies to stop rising premiums.
In the same WCCB interview, McCready spoke about his health care concerns.
“We’ve got to get leaders in Washington who will work across the aisle on common-sense reform to lower health care costs,” he said. “Congress needs to focus on actually delivering for the American people.”
A day later, on June 15, McCready posted on his Facebook and Twitter accounts asserting health care is the biggest issue in the district.
His post told the story of a veteran he met while campaigning whose family struggled to pay for health insurance. Some of the reader comments expressed frustration with McCready’s lack of concrete proposals to fix a system he labeled “broken and unaffordable.”
McCready reiterated to reporters his emphasis on health care on Thursday, when he rolled out a new 10-point plan to lower prescription drug costs. The plan calls for an end to pharmaceutical price hikes, tighter marketing restrictions, streamlining generic drug approval and importing some drugs from Canada.
The news conference, held in a small pharmacy in Mint Hill, also featured pharmacist Phillip Thornton, who spoke in support of the plan, and Jessica Lynn-Lato, a district resident.
Lynn-Lato spoke to reporters about the dramatic increase in the price of the insulin she required for her Type-I diabetes. The medication, Humalog, a type of generic insulin, increased in cost from roughly $20 a vial in the late 1990s to roughly $350 today, dramatically exceeding the rate of inflation.
A $20 vial in 1996 would cost $32.64 today if it followed the rate of inflation, according to data from the Bureau Labor Statistics Consumer Price Index.
“What’s changed about this vial of insulin?” Lynn-Lato asked, holding up a small clear vial. “Nothing but the price.”
Lynn-Lato also spoke about her nephew George, who died after he lost his insurance and began rationing his insulin.
“George went to the pharmacy for his insulin one day. He left that day without his insulin,” she said. “Unbeknownst to his family, he began to ration his insulin. George passed away two months later.”
Throughout the news conference, McCready praised several Trump administration policies which aimed to lower drug costs, but was notably silent on major Democratic healthcare policies like the Affordable Care Act, more commonly known as “Obamacare,” and single-payer plans championed by several prominent Democratic presidential candidates – including Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and Kamala Harris.
In late May, McCready said in an interview with UNC FactCheck that “Obamacare” needed revamping but said he doesn’t support single-payer. The candidate said stabilizing markets and allowing the government to negotiate directly with pharmaceutical companies would lower drug prices.
Where the candidates agree, and where they don’t
When it comes to “Obamacare,” the two candidates appear to have some common ground. Bishop responded to a question about whether he would support repealing the act by agreeing with McCready that it needs an overhaul.
“It needs to be fixed. I think the right way to do it is to repeal and replace it,” Bishop said in a May 16 interview with WFAE.
But what the replacement should be, according to Bishop, still seemed unclear.
Bishop added that if the ACA was repealed, he has already worked on legislation to expand use of association health plans to cover people who had been benefiting from the ACA.
“There’s a series of reforms like that that can be made,” he said. “It’s not one single bullet, but there’s many things that can be done to improve access to health care at lower cost.”
In Thursday’s news conference, McCready attacked Bishop for his stances on health care, highlighting his vote against the bi-partisan Pharmacy Patient Fair Practices Act. The 2017 law prevents pharmacists from being penalized by pharmacy-benefit managers for selling or informing customers of lower-priced drugs. Bishop was the only senator to vote against the bill.
McCready also cited Bishop’s opposition to the N.C. Cancer Treatment Fairness Act, which would ensure insurance companies cover both oral chemotherapy on a basis no less favorable than coverage for intravenous treatment. The bill passed in the House but has remained inactive in the Senate since May 6.
“Senator Bishop has refused to say where he stands,” McCready said. “He has refused to explain these perplexing and alarming votes which raise grave concerns about his relationship with pharmaceutical companies.”
A few hours after the McCready’s news conference, Bishop released a statement explaining his rationale for both bills.
“Like many dubious policies, they have a great-sounding name but the devil is in the details, as was the case with this bill that was a pro-big pharma bill being pushed by drug makers that would increase the cost of insurance by adding mandates for expensive new drugs that drug companies push, rather than allowing proven and effective older drugs to be used first,” Bishop said of the cancer bill in the statement. “If McCready wants to attack my opposition to this legislation, he has some explaining to do to the people of North Carolina.”
Bishop said he voted against the Pharmacy Patient Fairness act because it was changed last minute, and he didn’t have a chance to read it.
“This companion House version was added to the Senate calendar on June 28 at the last minute and, unlike Nancy Pelosi’s advice on Obamacare, I don’t vote for bills without an opportunity to read them,” Bishop said. “This is a completely misleading attack by McCready and Pelosi’s DCCC [Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee] that ignores the real facts.”
According to the General Assembly website, the bill was placed on the whole Senate calendar on June 28 but was sent by the House on April 27 and referred to committees where Bishop is a member.
Each iteration of the bill was only two pages long.
Understanding Bishop’s history
Though his website remains thin on details, Bishop’s stance on health care can also be gleaned from bills he supported in the legislature.
For example, Bishop was the primary sponsor of the Small Business Healthcare Act (SB 86), which was filed in February.
The bill works to expand eligibility to association health-insurance plans for small-businesses.
Bishop also sponsored SB 361, the Healthcare Expansion Act of 2019. In March, Bishop along with Sen. Joyce Krawiec, R-Kernersville, proposed a plan to secure $40 million in state funds to add nearly 2,000 new clients of the intellectual/developmental disabilities (IDD) population to the Medicaid Innovations Waiver.
The waiver effectively allows its clients to receive care in their homes instead of an outside facility.
As the election nears, we’ll keep following the health care debate for new developments.
Tyler Musialowski contributed reporting
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