Frank Pierce, 39, is a Raleigh native. He graduated from the University of Mount Olive in Mount Olive, North Carolina, with a Bachelor of Science in General Studies. He’s the owner of a landscaping company, and he lives in Raleigh with his wife, Kristi, and three children. Peirce and his wife created Holiday Firefighters Meal, an organization that feeds firefighters on Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Our Q&A with Frank Pierce
The following answers were provided by Frank Pierce’s campaign.
What would be your plan for ensuring the future security/ strength of Medicare?
I will always vote to ensure the future security and strength of both Medicare and Social Security. These are pillars of our country’s safety net and should never be threatened. I agree with the current Administration that eliminating the income cap would go a long way to ensuring the solvency of the program.
What would you support in Congress as a plan to help control health care/pharmaceutical costs?
I fully support the provision in the Inflation Reduction Act that requires the HHS Secretary to negotiate prices with drug companies. Leveraging the purchasing power of the largest single source of healthcare coverage is a common sense solution in controlling healthcare and pharmaceutical costs.
Where do you stand on time limits for Medicaid and work requirements for the program?
There should be neither time limits nor work requirements for Medicaid. It is insulting and demeaning to assume that poor people are not working. The majority of individuals on Medicaid are the working poor.
What can the federal government do to support rural hospitals?
The Federal Government can expand on many existing programs to help support rural hospitals. Grants through the Federal Office of Rural Health Policy to provide infrastructure and technical improvements of rural hospitals and passing the Rural America Health Corps Act which will provide loan repayment programs for primary providers to work in rural communities would go a long way to ensuring viability.
Where do you stand on restoring funding for the Affordable Connectivity Program?
“Due to a lack of additional funding from Congress, the Affordable Connectivity Program has ended for now.” The digital divide is a shameful fact of life in the US. The trajectory of someone’s life should not be determined by the zip code of their birth.
PFAS contamination is a country-wide issue; How do you balance public safety and business interests with this issue?
The EPA has taken the lead on awarding grants to universities to research, detect, degrade, and reduce exposure to PFAS, which we are still learning about. Nicknamed “forever chemicals” the business community must be part of the solutions to this public health crisis.
Is the federal government ready for the next pandemic?
No. The most important factor in responding to public health crisis is public trust. The populous need to be able to trust and follow the recommendations of experts within the government infrastructure and coordinated plans to tackle public health crisis. America is extremely divided and extremists pushed pseudo-science, misinformation and a mass distrust of the medical community during Covid. We need to first rebuild the capacity and integrations of global monitoring agencies like the WHO to monitor and provide rapid response for global outbreaks, and reinstitute the task forces dedicated to ensuring America is prepared for the worst.
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?
I do believe that Congress should enforce stricter requirements for non-profit hospitals. While I understand that adhering to stricter requirements increases the administrative costs of those non-profit hospitals, there stands a risk of substantial abuse of our tax policy, and the federal government in turn subsidizing hospitals behaving in a fashion in contradiction to our desires.
Where do you stand on federal abortion limits? What gestational limits, if any, would you set?
The reproductive healthcare, up to and including abortion care, of a pregnant person should be between that person and their physician. Medical decisions should not be made by politicians.
How can Congress improve access to child care? What states are leading the way that you think could be a good federal model?
When women were needed in the workforce during WWII, the federal government set up top-notch child care centers and backed the research to show that children could thrive without the 24/7 care of their mothers. When the war was over and men came back for their jobs, suddenly, a woman’s place was in the home and research showed that children needed their mothers. We know how to do this. We choose not to. The states that are leading this now are Michigan, Massachusetts, Vermont, Oregon, and New Mexico. Crafting federal programs to emulate what is working in those states and expanding the efforts of those states should be a priority.
Support for the EITC/ child care tax credit?
As of January 1, 2014, NC became the only state to eliminate the EITC – an extremely poor policy decision. The child tax credit lifted millions of children out of poverty during the pandemic. The EITC has been proven to remove children from poverty and should be expanded.
What steps would you take to improve access to mental health services and to address the opioid overdose crisis?
Mental health parity is a myth in this country. While we claim to have parity, it is nearly impossible for patients to find a mental health practitioner, even with insurance coverage. Understaffing and insurance company reimbursements contribute to this crisis. The Covid pandemic made this situation worse, with young people, mostly girls, are at risk of negative mental health outcomes. The Mental Health Access Improvement Act was a good first step in ensuring a network of counselors and therapists would be covered under Medicare Part B. Improving access to broadband services and telehealth services can also provide access to individuals in communities that lacks quality access to mental health professionals.
In May, US Sens. Cory Booker and Mike Braun introduced legislation to establish a pharmacy-based addiction care pilot program. The Substance Use Prevention and Pharmacy Oriented Recovery Treatment Prescription Act would increase access to lifesaving addiction services provided by pharmacies, including low-barrier treatment and buprenorphine, a medication used to opioid use disorder. Solutions like this one need to be supported.