Pat Harrigan took office as the U.S. representative for North Carolina’s 10th Congressional District in January 2025. He graduated from West Point with a degree in nuclear engineering and served as an Army Green Beret in Afghanistan. While serving in the military, Harrigan and his wife started a firearms manufacturing business that now operates out of western North Carolina.
Candidate Q&A
Pat Harrigan took office as the U.S. representative for North Carolina’s 10th Congressional District in January 2025. He graduated from West Point with a degree in nuclear engineering and served as an Army Green Beret in Afghanistan. While serving in the military, Harrigan and his wife started a firearms manufacturing business that now operates out of western North Carolina.
Candidate Q&A
NC Health News contacted Pat Harrigan’s campaign and congressional office multiple times seeking responses to our list of questions. Rather than answer the questions individually, Harrigan’s Communications Director Lexi Kranich provided a statement from Harrigan, which appears below with the relevant questions. To provide additional information to readers, we also reviewed Harrigan’s congressional voting record, along with statements he has made on his website and in news releases.
“Healthcare policy should start with what patients actually need. They need a provider close enough to see them and care they can afford when they get there. That is especially difficult in rural North Carolina, which is why I introduced the bipartisan REACH Act to give doctors, nurses, mental health professionals, and medical residents a $10,000 annual tax credit to work in rural communities. I also voted to create the $50 billion Rural Health Transformation Program, which has already brought $213 million to North Carolina in its first year, including $20 million for telehealth and healthcare technology and $10 million for 39 rural EMS agencies. We are putting real resources behind recruiting providers, strengthening rural care, and bringing more services closer to patients.
But expanding access does not solve much if families still cannot afford the care they receive. The Administration has reached agreements with 26 drug manufacturers covering 89 percent of the branded market to bring American prescription prices closer to what patients pay in other developed countries, and we should keep pushing for more competition and transparency across healthcare. We also have to protect Medicare and Social Security for the Americans who spent their working lives paying into them and deal with their long-term finances before a crisis makes the choices harder. Medicaid’s new community engagement requirements are another test of whether government can administer a major program competently. States need to enforce the law, correctly identify people who qualify for exemptions, and make sure eligible patients are not losing coverage because of paperwork or outdated systems.
That same focus on competent government matters as healthcare changes. I have co-led bipartisan legislation directing NIST to track rapidly advancing AI, and I support using these tools to reduce paperwork, expand access, and give providers better information while protecting patient data and keeping people accountable for medical decisions. Public health requires the same balance. Whether we are dealing with vaccines and disease outbreaks, contaminated food, unsafe water, or PFAS, federal policy should be driven by credible evidence, transparent information, strong surveillance, and a clear understanding of the risk we are trying to solve. I want government focused on outcomes people can actually see: more providers, lower costs, programs that work, and public-health institutions that earn trust by doing their jobs well.”
What do you see as the biggest financial and administrative challenge to implementing the work requirements for Medicaid that were included in the One Big Beautiful Bill?
Harrigan voted in favor of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, citing in part Medicaid reforms and savings that he said would remove undocumented immigrants from Medicaid rolls and crack down on fraud and abuse.
“Medicaid’s new community engagement requirements are another test of whether government can administer a major program competently,” Harrigan said in his statement to NC Health News. “States need to enforce the law, correctly identify people who qualify for exemptions and make sure eligible patients are not losing coverage because of paperwork or outdated systems.”
What would be your plan for ensuring the future security and strength of Social Security and Medicare?
In his statement to NC Health News, Harrigan said the country must “protect Medicare and Social Security for the Americans who spent their working lives paying into them and deal with their long-term finances before a crisis makes the choices harder,” but he did not elaborate on a specific plan.
In an August FOX8 interview, Harrigan acknowledged Congress needs to act on Social Security. Asked about removing the cap on earnings subject to Social Security taxes, he said it could be “one of the tools in the toolbox,” but added that “it certainly isn’t going to solve the problem in and of itself, and it’s going to create second and third order consequences to it if that’s the only thing we’re looking at alone.”
In multiple other interviews, Harrigan has called the nation’s debt and level of spending “unsustainable.” Harrigan told the Washington Reporter in April 2025 that curbing waste, fraud and abuse within the government allows for the long-term stability and preservation of entitlement programs, such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
What would you support in Congress as a plan to help control health care and pharmaceutical costs?
“Expanding access [to health care] does not solve much if families still cannot afford the care they receive,” Harrigan said in his statement. “The Administration has reached agreements with 26 drug manufacturers covering 89 percent of the branded market to bring American prescription prices closer to what patients pay in other developed countries, and we should keep pushing for more competition and transparency across healthcare.”
What steps would you take to improve access to health care in rural areas? How do we make the Rural Health Transformation Program successful in North Carolina?
“Healthcare policy should start with what patients actually need,” Harrigan said in his statement to NC Health News. “They need a provider close enough to see them and care they can afford when they get there. That is especially difficult in rural North Carolina.”
In an Oct. 14 op-ed for NC Political News, Harrigan wrote that addressing rural health care challenges in Congress takes both investing in infrastructure communities needs while also tackling workforce shortages that prevent patients from receiving care.
Harrigan described the $50 billion Rural Health Transformation Program he voted for as “one of the largest federal commitments to rural health care in American history.” He noted that North Carolina has already been awarded more than $213 million for the program’s first year and that the investment will target some of the most difficult gaps in rural health care, including in mental health services and rural EMS agencies.
“Securing federal funding is only the beginning,” Harrigan wrote in the op-ed. “The real measure of success will be whether a rural hospital can keep its doors open, whether a young doctor chooses to practice in a small town, and whether a family can get the care it needs without spending half a day on the road.”
Harrigan also highlighted workforce shortages as a serious barrier to rural health access. To help address that problem, Harrigan introduced the bipartisan REACH Act in September. The legislation would provide a refundable $10,000 annual tax credit to eligible doctors, nurses, mental health professionals and medical residents who choose to work in rural communities in an effort to bolster recruitment and retention.
“We are putting real resources behind recruiting providers, strengthening rural care and bringing more services closer to patients,” he said in his statement.
The rollout of AI is moving fast, including in health care, and leaders in that space are calling for things to slow down. What federal moves should be taken to regulate it, if at all?
“I have co-led bipartisan legislation directing NIST [National Institute of Standards and Technology] to track rapidly advancing AI, and I support using these tools to reduce paperwork, expand access and give providers better information while protecting patient data and keeping people accountable for medical decisions,” Harrigan said in a statement to NC Health News.
Where do you stand on federal vaccine policy? What should be done to prevent future disease outbreaks?
Harrigan introduced legislation in January 2025, which sought to prevent the Department of Defense from issuing COVID-19 vaccine mandates without explicit congressional approval and provide remedies for service members affected by mandates enacted by the Biden administration.
“This mandate wasn’t about science or readiness—it was about control,” Harrigan said in a news release about the bill, which has not been passed by Congress. “Thousands of patriots were cast aside by the very nation they swore to defend, stripped of their careers, their benefits, and their dignity—not because they failed to serve honorably, but because of political overreach.”
NC Health News did not find public statements from Harrigan outlining his broader approach to federal vaccine policy or measures to prevent future disease outbreaks.
We’ve had some high-profile food contamination outbreaks, yet the federal government is pulling back on regulation of food, air and water. What level of federal regulation do you support and why?
“Whether we are dealing with vaccines and disease outbreaks, contaminated food, unsafe water, or PFAS, federal policy should be driven by credible evidence, transparent information, strong surveillance and a clear understanding of the risk we are trying to solve,” Harrigan said in his statement.
PFAS contamination is a nationwide issue; how do you address it while balancing public safety and business interests?
Harrigan said in his statement that “federal policy should be driven by credible evidence, transparent information, strong surveillance, and a clear understanding of the risk we are trying to solve.”
The building and placement of data centers have become a big issue, particularly in many rural communities. What should be the federal government’s role, if any, in how these are developed?
In a C-SPAN interview, Harrigan said the federal government should not dictate local decisions about data centers.
“I do believe it is our responsibility as representatives to inform our constituencies, to tell them the truth, to have honest discussions about what are the advantages, what are the opportunities, and what are the limitations and constraints and consequences of [data centers], and allow our constituencies to make those decisions for themselves,” Harrigan said.
In a March interview with the Washington Post, Harrigan said data centers can be beneficial for communities but that there’s no one-size-fits-all solution to development. He said he believes companies should cover the energy costs associated with operating their data centers.
“That can mean a lot of different things,” he said. “That could mean that they put in solar, that could mean that they put in [small modular nuclear reactors]. That could mean that they’ve got to work alongside Duke Energy and put in a natural gas power plant that provides for the needs of what they’re going to consume at that facility.
Is there anything else you’d like our readers to know?
“I want government focused on outcomes people can actually see: more providers, lower costs, programs that work, and public-health institutions that earn trust by doing their jobs well,” Harrigan said in his statement.
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