MikeMooreMedia
Dr. Steve Luking, Candidate For NC Senate 10.10.24
Medicaid, rural health care, public education, tax policies, casino.
www.Steveluking4NC.org
- Broadcast on:
- 10 Oct 2024
- Audio Format:
- other
I'm talking to Dr. Steve Luking, candidate for North Carolina Senate District 26, seat currently held by Phil Berger. Dr. Luking, I'm going to say Steve, if that's okay, hey, how are you? That's fine. I'm doing well, and it's great to be here with you and our listeners today. I know you're out and about on the campaign trail, before we get into some of the issues that are of primary interest to you and voters. A little bit of background on you, who is Dr. Steve Luking? For those who may not know. Well, sure. Thank you. Well, I'm a family physician. My brother and I started reach full family medicine, maybe 31, 32 years ago, and I practiced several decades there. I worked my way up to Chief of Staff and Hospital Board Chair for Annie Penn Hospital. My wife's a retired school teacher, my two children attended public schools, and I'm proud to say my daughter's now a public school teacher up in Asheville, and my son is a professional fisherman up in Alaska. And we love Rockingham County. This is our home. This will forever be our home, and I'm happy to be running this year. It's been quite the experience. I'm sure it has, because you've never run for office before, have you? This is my very first go at political office, that's correct. Yeah. Why did you make that decision? What prompted you to do this? Well, thank you. So for about a dozen years, I fought very hard for Medicaid expansion. I was frankly sought when our state decided, including my opponent, Phil Berger, as head of the Senate, decided to reject Medicaid expansion, I thought that was a terrible decision, particularly for our rural communities and my uninsured patients. So I really leaned in hard for a dozen years, and our state finally came to its senses, but not before thousands died prematurely and unnecessarily. We lost billions of dollars of tax dollars that went elsewhere. And we had our rural hospitals end up declaring bankruptcy at a rate four times higher than the states that had the good sense to expand from the start. So I feel like my opponent made a really bad decision for our rural communities and for health care in general. And as I got to looking more on his positions on public education and other issues, his position on the casino, for instance, I felt that he needed a strong opponent this year. And that's why I decided to throw my hat in the ring. Okay. Let's talk about some other medical issues that we should be concerned with. You mentioned rural hospitals and health care. And some people know about PBMs, but some don't. Can you kind of give us an overview of that, please? Well, sure. We'll be happy to. So PBMs are called pharmacy benefit managers. They are owned by insurance companies. And insurance companies now often own pharmacies. And what these PBMs, they started off claiming they would help save money for patients. But the studies have shown they do not save money for patients. They basically selectively guide patients towards their own pharmacies and end up actually costing the patients more. Where I came into this issue was hearing from so many independent pharmacists in our county and across the state how much PBMs have harmed their business. We are losing independent pharmacies at a scary rate. They provide half of all the pharmacy care for our patients out in the rural communities across the state. And in my own experience, over 30 years practicing in rural areas in North Carolina, I found them to be so the most attentive to our folks as far as their pharmacy needs. So the state house actually passed a law that would mandate for these PBMs to pay independent pharmacies the same as they pay their own own pharmacies. There's only an element of fairness. Well, this legislation has not even been brought to the floor in the Senate. And my opponent Phil Berger has been dead set against it. Now he's used multiple explanations and you'll have to speak with him. But all the independent pharmacists that I've spoken to feel that his main reason for rejecting bringing this up is all the money that he and others in his closed circle have accepted from the insurance companies in the pharmaceutical industry. I think this is yet another example of our legislators and rally making decisions that respond to their donors and to the large corporations and often make decisions that harm our local communities. So I have spoke out pretty aggressively for Senator Berger to allow this legislation to go forward. I should note it passed in the House 114 to zero. So clearly there's a thought out there that the PBMs are an unfair business practice and they're working against our independent pharmacies which are such a vital part of our community. They certainly are. And as you mentioned nationwide, thousands of those local hometown pharmacies have closed in trouble and that's why it's important for us as a voter to do our homework and kind of know where our people stand that are in office now. Story in the news today, a CVS health laying off 400 plus employees at its Etna headquarters in Connecticut at now own CVS and in addition to 600 jobs previously so you're looking at a thousand there so maybe they're running into some issues there it seems like for sure. Maybe so yeah yeah okay I know public education has been close to your heart is close to you to what you are all about let's let's touch on that Steve yes I'll be happy to one other thing on health care most of our primary care physicians in the in the county and in my district are not accepting new patients so I would lean hard on the large health care systems they have quite a bit of cash on hand and they could put more investments in the bringing more primary care physicians into our community and doing a better job of retaining them so this would be as senator I would absolutely make that a priority and I would lean on the large health care systems to make it happen and believe me they they have room to maneuver on that and they should be they should be encouraged strongly to press forward on that yeah thank you on that and you know before before we get to education though and I know that's so important to you but you know I think you bring as a as a physician and in your practice there for many many years you bring an interesting perspective to things just like this that I think is very important. Oh absolutely on this on other issues for instance science-based medicine and science-based approach to pandemics and health care there are so many areas that I saw our general assembly falter on through the pandemic that I think we could really improve things by having some caring competent positions willing to speak on behalf of patients and therefore constituents for sure. Yeah okay now to education yes for sure well so I'm a product of public education I was the first one to earn a four year degree on either side of my family I lived at home loaded trucks I was a team server for four years before I headed to med school I realized the incredible importance of a good solid public education system for the whole community and particularly for the next generation I chose North Carolina thirty-seven years ago because at that time we had a good reputation for public education and I wanted to come to a state in the southeast that had that. My opponent Phil Berger often boasts in our debates about how his kids went to public schools but these were in the 80s and 90s when our school system or our public education state system was 31st in the nation as far as funding under his leadership we have felt a 48th in the nation and 49th is a fraction of our GDP and we're seeing teachers quit left and right we're seeing rural school systems have to take all kinds of cutbacks on what they're providing and going to in large class sizes it's incredibly frustrating to me that my opponent and his fellow like-minded senators have decided to really cut back on public education funding and of course this year instead of perhaps responding to all the communities who are upset about all the cutbacks he actually doubled down with the passage of an extension of the private voucher plan most of this new half of a billion that's a B extension that they voted on and approved will go to families earning a hundred and sixteen thousand dollars or more per year and most of these monies will travel to the big cities where all the fancy private academies are this is yet another example of our rural areas taking a hit because of decisions from the general assembly so I am fighting hard to restore solid funding to public education and to give solid raises to our teachers who are doing so much for the next generation and one last point I have to make there even if you don't care about these kids future surely you care about the need for a skilled workforce going into the future and as governor Cooper said we can't continue to be first in business by being last in public education we have to invest in our next generation in order to maintain a solid skilled workforce and maintain good industry recruitment through the decades ahead. Wow that is very very important when you give those numbers where we are in the nation and North Carolina that's that's scary isn't it? It's scary and it's depressing you know I once read someone who said a state fiscal budget is really a moral fiscal document we make decisions about where to invest my opponent has decided to intentionally defund public education I don't understand it it's puzzling to me you'll have to ask him is exact rationale but I think it's harming a whole future of school kids it's particularly harming a rural community where a solid public education system is our ticket to further growth in economic development and it's just bad policy all the way around so as a senator I would fight hard to reverse this decline. Let's talk about let's jump right into taxes and tax policies where do you and your opponent differ on that? Well certainly so once again Phil Berger has boasted often about dropping corporate taxes to the lowest in the nation and in the same paragraph he will often say this is why North Carolina has been ranked top for business in recent years well this year Virginia replaced North Carolina as ranked top in business and Virginia's corporate tax rate is six percent Phil Berger and his buddies want to move it to zero percent and the only way they're doing this is by severe cutbacks in public school funding and also by making taxes more regressive we have seen our property taxes go up substantially locally here because our county commission has had to respond to funding cutbacks from the general assembly by raising the tax rate on our local folks to try to maintain some funding for our public schools that's just one example there is also a regressive push of more taxes on to the income of lower and middle class folks and our state is one of only 12 or 13 in the nation which actually taxes grocery so I would by card to restore a solid corporate tax back at the 2016 levels give a break for small businesses up to a certain amount and take that 1.5 billion and apply it to some tremendous needs in our state and not force our local counties to further raise property taxes going into the future before our time completely gets away I haven't heard much about it lately but is it still out there on the back burner somewhere let's talk about the whole issue of the casino that came up recently yes happy to do it so I'm incredibly concerned that after the election this back burner will become the front burner earlier in the summer of Filburger declared the casino as a dormant if not dead issue well the difference between dormant and dead is incredibly a 100% difference and I'm concerned that they will raise this casino again after the election I think ethically it's a bad deal the 10 mile radius around it the cino leads a surge in problem gambling the half of the money that comes for the beetle intakes are from problem gamblers and from low income folks and I think economically it's a bad deal do we really want this to be the flagship industry for our county and point 1500 people I think not three quarters of the jobs will be 16 to 17 dollar per hour jobs service industry high school level training and this is not a wage that you can raise families on why not wait for a good solid industry to pay something far more like the Toyota battery plant that came up south of Greensboro I think that my opponent pushed hard to get this not just because of the tens of thousands of dollars that he took in from campaign donations from those planning to build the casino but the idea of hundreds of thousands even millions in dark money that will flow into the packs and will be donated to he and others through the general assembly going into the future and I think this is terrible it's basically trading away the future of our county with the idea of pointing more money for their campaign coppers and it's a sad decision it's wrong and I hope the county fights back hard on it okay well before we wrap things up anything else you wanted to to mention on this podcast dr. Luke I can just say it's been my honor to serve of my community for several decades as a family position and now I am trying to sort of going into the future as a senator I've literally knocked on I know by now thousands of doors in Rockingham county and in my district in Guilford county over the past year I've heard from hundreds of voters there are many folks disenchanted with the direction that we are going in I would be happy to create sort of a new start in terms of representations of community truly making it where the regular citizens would have a front seat in my office and wobbiest and others to stand out on the sidewalk instead of the reversal situation that we find ourselves in now so I would be happy to serve in that regard well we appreciate your your work in the in the past in our community and in the medical field and and what you're doing now I'm on on your website here steve luking for nc.org steve luking and the number four nc.org is that the best way really to communicate with you yes you can go in there and find all kinds of things out about our campaign and that will get you other sites into our Facebook site where once or twice a week I try to write on some important issues so by all means that would be a good start okay well thank you for your time here uh pleasure to get to get better acquainted with you and uh we'll uh we'll wish you all the best out there on the campaign trail while it's uh dwindling down to today's and uh weeks now isn't it yes it is and uh like I said it's been my honor to be a part of things to be a part of the democratic process and really try to be a voice for regular folks out there it's been my honor to give it my best shot okay uh that's our program uh this has been paid for by steve luking for nc