Rob Luffman, 46, is self-employed as an independent truck driver and a photographer. He is seeking elected office for the first time. Luffman lives in Wilkes County with his wife.
Candidate Q&A
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?
“Everything is a financial challenge now. We’re $40 trillion in debt. I don’t see how we’re going to be able to overcome or implement or administrate anything at this point in time financially as a federal government with the spending that’s occurring. Both parties are at fault for this because they spend recklessly. And who has to pay for it ultimately is you and me and everybody else.”
What would be your plan for ensuring the future security/strength of Social Security and Medicare?
“These folks now have paid into it their whole working lives and depend on it. It’s the one thing that they expected to have. So we’ve got to keep it funded for them. At the same time, you’ve got to give people like myself and others and younger generations the option of opting out. The return on investment for Social Security is poor, so I plan on trying to eliminate income taxes for anybody making under $150,000 a year. If we could put that into a retirement account on the stock market, and not through Social Security Administration, the ROI on that would be greater over time than the $1,200 that we expect to start getting when we’re 60 something. …We have to keep it solvent, but I think that we should open up the options for phasing the system out and changing it for something better in the future.”
What would you support in Congress as a plan to help control health care/ pharmaceutical costs?
“ACA was a really, really, really good theory and a very good example of what we got wrong. It made a lot of rich CEOs. It did not do anything for the American people as far as driving down costs or improving the quality of their health care. … I’m not a medical expert. I just know that what we have is broken, and neither party seems to want to fix it.”
He asked why insulin, which has been around for more than 100 years, is not given out free to diabetics like Narcan is for overdose victims. Drug companies are profiting while everyday people can’t afford their medicine, he said.
“It all needs to be tore down and rebuilt with a purpose in mind. And as long as Congress writes laws for people to profit on, and not for the American people, it’s always going to be a problem.”
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?
Luffman said he had not done any research on this issue so he will have to look into it more. However, he said he noticed that rural areas are getting more urgent care and surgical centers, for example, that help with access to care.
“I think that it’s slowly but surely balancing itself out by these off-site facilities. It’s just in some places there’s still a disparity, like a food desert, but it’s a medical care desert. We have to look at the map and see what needs are needed where the most, and assign a priority level to it.”
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?
The federal government should not be regulating AI, he said. That should be left up to the industry and individuals.
“Every time the federal government gets involved in anything, it makes it worse. … The federal government’s too big for its britches as it is. It does not need control over something else, especially something that may be an entity unto its own. But the users can control it, and the developers can control it, and the hospital systems that want to implement and use certain aspects of it should have the ability to create guardrails for it.”
Where do you stand on federal vaccine policy? What should be done to prevent future disease outbreaks?
“I’m no science major, so I’m no health care professional. I would have to personally lean into what science or health care professionals said on the matter, but from a candidate and a libertarian’s perspective, I don’t believe that the federal government should force any individual to take something against their will. The federal government can recommend all day long. They can offer guidance and guidelines, but should not make anybody do anything that is against their individuality.”
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?
“What you’re considering high-profile to me is stuff that happens every day. It’s just publicized and immediately brought to our attention because of social media, and people get to react to it faster. I don’t know if it’s because of the changes of the guidelines from the current administration and the previous administration, per se, but I do know that because of my experience with journalism, bad news always makes the news. Good news won’t make the news.”
However, he said the federal government should track food as it makes its way to consumers.
“The federal government should stay on top of holding businesses accountable, but not the individuals.”
PFAS contamination is a nationwide issue; how do you address it while balancing public safety and business interests?
He said the federal government should require businesses to set aside money to cover any environmental damage.
“I want to dig into this 180 acres over here because there’s something down there in that dirt that I want, I have to give you a percentage of my money for the reclamation of that land to return it back to a naturally, environmentally sound, sustaining habitat when I’m done digging out whatever I want. That money would be there to recover that land when my entity was gone. If they’re going to mess with the people’s property for profit, some of their profit needs to go back into a fund to return that land back to the people.”
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?
“That to me is a state and local issue, because some communities are for it, some communities are against it, and I think that depends on the individual community.”
And, as in the previous question’s answer, he said companies should have to set aside money to return the land to the way it was if the business shuts down.
Is there anything else you’d like our readers to know?
“I believe in the American dream and how us as individuals can stand together for the common good, and I’ve stood up now to attempt to fight the corruption and disparity that faces our nation today. It’s my intent and goal to give the federal government back to the people of North Carolina, and not to the one individual idealism or political party agenda. My research into topics may not be as fully invested at this time as they need to be, but I can ensure that I will put the effort and time and research due into any subject before me to do what’s right for the people of North Carolina.”
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