Greg Murphy is a urologist representing North Carolina’s 3rd congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives since 2019. He served as a representative in the North Carolina General Assembly from 2015 to 2019. Murphy was raised in Raleigh, North Carolina, attended Davidson College and completed medical school at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Our Q&A with Greg Murphy
What would be your plan for ensuring the future security/ strength of Medicare?
No answer was provided by Murphy’s campaign.
Congressman Greg Murphy, M.D. has introduced legislation, the Preserving Seniors’ Access to Physicians Act, a bipartisan measure to prevent the full Medicare physician fee schedule cuts from being implemented on January 1, 2024.
said Murphy on his website. “This bill takes action on a critical issue others refuse to do – pays physicians, who serve Medicare patients out of the goodness of their hearts, because Medicare payments simply don’t pay for the cost of care. I am past done with the onslaught of cuts made by politicians and unelected bureaucrats who regard doctors and patients as little more than cogs in the wheels of health care. Sooner, rather than later, physicians are just going to stop taking Medicare. If you own the hardware store, why would you sell a hammer for a dollar when it costs you two dollars? Enough is enough. This is one more step towards fixing the broken Medicare system.”
In a video interview with the North Carolina Medical Society, Murphy said that Medicare would need to be reformed.
“In 1965 there were 4.6 people paying in for each (Medicare) recipient. That number has gone down to two and a half. So we have more individuals with fewer people paying for it, which puts the whole program at risk, meaning Medicare is going to have to be reformed, not replaced, not taken away, but reform,” he said.
“We also know that people are living longer, I mean, but it costs medicine for us to live longer. We can’t with this growing population of Medicare, cannot keep facing the cuts upon the cuts upon the cuts to the doctors who are nice enough, really humble, enough to take Medicare patients and when they know that they don’t pay for the bills.”
What would you support in Congress as a plan to help control health care/ pharmaceutical costs?
No answer was provided by Murphy’s campaign.
Murphy was one of a bipartisan group that sponsored the Biologics Competition Act, according to his Congressional website. The bill would direct the Secretary of Health and Human Services to evaluate the process by which interchangeable biological products are approved to be used in pharmaceuticals.
“In many cases, these interchangeable products are more affordable, increase pharmaceutical drug competition, and result in lower drug prices,” a press release said.
Where do you stand on time limits for Medicaid and work requirements for the program?
No answer was provided by Murphy’s campaign.
“As a physician and former state legislator, I am supportive of Medicaid expansion,” Murphy told WNCT News in March 2023. “It will go a long way toward helping our middle class. Hospitals, especially our rural hospitals, will have stability.
“There are certain requirements that must be met, but it is my hope that participants will use this as a step up to maintain a healthy life.”
Murphy had been one of the original sponsors of the bill to expand Medicaid, but when he was running for Congress, he backpedaled away from his support for the policy. His name was even removed from the bill that had been filed at the legislature.
More recently, Murphy told the NC Medical Society in a video interview that “Medicaid pays even less than Medicare, and so paying the doctors to actually see the Medicaid patients is one but then, when you have such a shortage of doctors, and they’re already getting overrun with Medicare patients, what do we do with the Medicaid patients now that quote, have coverage. They don’t have insurance. It’s not health care, but they have coverage. It’s a real challenging time.”
What can the federal government do to support rural hospitals?
No answer was provided by Murphy’s campaign.
According to Murphy’s Congressional website, it notes that he introduced legislation to ensure that unallocated graduate medical education slots created in the 2021 and 2023 budgets go to hospitals located in rural areas. Congress created 1,000 additional Medicare-funded full-time equivalent resident cap slots for eligible hospitals to be phased in over five years in the 2021 budget. In the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023, Congress provided 200 additional graduate medical education slots, with 100 required to go to psychiatry or psychiatry subspecialties. That bill would allocate the 10% rural set-aside for the remaining new Medicare graduate medical education slots to geographically rural hospitals.
“Decades of real-world data show rural trained physicians are more likely to practice in rural communities,” Murphy wrote. “To grow the physician workforce and increase access to care for patients throughout the nation, we must prioritize the areas of need that are experiencing the most acute physician workforce shortages. Rural hospitals are struggling to recruit physicians with increasing difficulty, in part because of an imbalance in the apportionment of graduate medical education slots. Health care access continues to decline in rural America, and we must act swiftly to reverse this dangerous trend. Failure to do so will lead to more hospital and physician practice closures, greater instability in the supply of new physicians, and further burden patients already forced to travel long distances for care.”
Where do you stand on restoring funding for the Affordable Connectivity Program?
No answer was provided by Murphy’s campaign.
Murphy voted against continuing funding and authorization for the program this spring.
PFAS contamination is a country-wide issue; How do you balance public safety and business interests with this issue?
No answer was provided by Murphy’s campaign.
According to Murphy’s official Congressional page, Maysville, a town in his district, received a $503,000 federal grant to replace its only well that is currently contaminated with Per-and Polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), which can lead to adverse human health effects.
Congressman Greg Murphy, M.D. (NC-03) released the following statement in response:
“Clean water is essential for every community. We are so blessed in this country to be able to rely on having drinkable water at our fingertips… This generous grant will restore the sense of comfort that comes from turning on the faucet and knowing it’s safe. I’m grateful to the USDA and the Rural Development program for continuing to shine a light on small communities that are often overlooked and underserved,” said Murphy.
Murphy voted against a 2019 bill in Congress that would have revised several environmental laws and require the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to regulate perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, commonly referred to as PFAS. That bill passed the U.S. House, but died in the U.S. Senate.
Is the federal government ready for the next pandemic?
No answer was provided by Murphy’s campaign.
Earlier this year, Murphy wrote in Newsweek that “the threat of bioterrorism that leaves me sleepless… pathogens can spread silently, are monitored by the rate of infections, and require dynamic efforts to neutralize. Even after the COVID-19 pandemic, America struggles with the ability to grapple with the horrors of germ warfare.”
During the pandemic, Murphy writes, “I was called upon to provide regular updates to my constituents and colleagues on the evolution of the emergency and our response. While America made tremendous strides to overcome the crisis at home and abroad, our country remains enormously vulnerable to future biothreats.”
In the opinion piece, he cited the interest of other countries, such as China and Russia, in developing biological weapons.
“The United States devotes significant resources to threat monitoring and response, but our agencies’ ability to work coherently and cogently in a crisis remains limited. The pandemic exposed major bureaucratic challenges in the intelligence community, the Department of Defense, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response. Congress must address these shortcomings by expanding oversight and carefully assessing the needs of our agencies tasked with protecting the nation.”
Murphy did cite the rapid development of a vaccine as one of the U.S.’ accomplishments during the coronavirus pandemic.
“America has demonstrated its ability to mobilize quickly and save lives, but in an increasingly bellicose world, it’s time we double down on our efforts to prepare for future threats.”
In 2009, Congress required more transparency from hospitals on their charitable work: Do you think the federal government should enforce stricter requirements for nonprofit hospitals to justify their tax exemptions? Why or why not?
No answer was provided by Murphy’s campaign.
Murphy voted yea on H.R. 5378: Lower Costs, More Transparency Act, a bill requiring health care providers and insurers to disclose certain information about health care costs. It also establishes requirements for certain payment methodologies under Medicare and Medicaid and extends several public health programs.
The bill passed the House of Representatives, but has gone nowhere in the Senate.
Where do you stand on federal abortion limits? What gestational limits, if any, would you set?
No answer was provided by Murphy’s campaign.
On Murphy’s Congressional candidate page, it says, “As a devout Christian and staunch believer of the unalienable right to life for all, Dr. Murphy is a proud supporter of pro-life issues. Dr. Murphy has had a lifelong allegiance to the unborn and the right-to-life.”
Further, the page states that “Dr. Murphy has cosponsored numerous other bills to protect the lives of the unborn.”
How can Congress improve access to child care? What states are leading the way that you think could be a good federal model? Support for the EITC/ child care tax credit?
No answer was provided by Murphy’s campaign.
What steps would you take to improve access to mental health services and to address the opioid overdose crisis?
No answer was provided by Murphy’s campaign.
In an op-ed in the Washington Examiner, Murphy wrote: “We must address mental health and substance abuse. Among the millions of people who abuse opioids,64% struggle with a mental illness, and 27% suffer from a serious mental illness. Further, more must be done to get those with an addiction into treatment.”
He wrote that Chinese labs are creating fentanyl precursors and then shipping those to Mexico, where the drug is manufactured and then smuggled into the U.S.
“We must provide better support for law enforcement,” he wrote. “Police officers, federal agents, and especially CBP officers are integral in catching fentanyl.”
Most importantly, the Biden Administration must secure the border and take on the cartels and China. It is past-time President Biden restored border policies that were effective, such as the Remain in Mexico policy… We must degrade the ability of financers, manufacturers, and distributors to flood the US with illicit fentanyl.”