Andy Barr and Josh Hicks focus on COVID-19 as they make their final pitches to voters
Both men who want to represent Central Kentucky in Congress are focused on COVID-19 in their final pitches to voters, but the incumbent sounds more optimistic about current events than his challenger.
Republican U.S. Rep. Andy Barr of Lexington said Tuesday the federal response is going well. By contrast, Democrat Josh Hicks commiserated with voters who said the coronavirus pandemic has revealed gaping holes in the health care system.
The election is next Tuesday, but early voting has been going on for weeks across Kentucky.
Speaking to reporters at Lexington’s Idle Hour Park, Barr said people in the 6th Congressional District credit him for his work this year bringing in several truckloads of much-needed medical supplies; clarifying federal rules to make telehealth exams easier for providers in hospitals; and connecting pandemic-stricken employers to financial aid through the Paycheck Protection Program.
“I believe we need to get back to Washington and we need to pass another stimulus, another round of stimulus. We need to reload that paycheck protection loan program. But I’ve been very happy with the feedback we’ve gotten from constituents on how that’s kept Main Street businesses in business,” Barr said.
Two miles away, Hicks discussed health care with a dozen voters in Woodland Park. Most of the voters said they worry the pandemic is getting worse, and too many Americans are not getting the medical care they need during the crisis.
Among their concerns: Prescription drugs often are unaffordable. Health insurance in the United States usually is tied to jobs, so the millions of people being laid off this year also are losing their medical coverage. And public health departments playing a crucial role in the fight against COVID-19 not only are inadequately funded, they sometimes are attacked by angry virus skeptics in their own communities.
Hicks, a Lexington lawyer, said he sympathized with those concerns. Hicks said he fears the government has been allowed to grow weak and incompetent in recent years so that it cannot serve the needs of anyone other than the wealthiest Americans and corporations, which overwhelmingly fund the campaigns of politicians.
“Anything that helps regular people has been demonized as socialism,” said Hicks, whom Barr has labeled a socialist in television attack ads. “You hear, ‘Oh, you don’t want to turn over all the power to the corporations? That must be socialism.’”
If elected, Hicks said his top priorities over the next two years would include addressing the pandemic and improving rural broadband access in Kentucky so all families can fully participate in the digital economy.
Developing and distributing a COVID-19 vaccine will be important, Hicks said. But the virus has afflicted many Kentuckians in part because of their comorbidities, or additional ailments, such as diabetes, which is a common disease in the state.
Congress needs to lower drug prices to help people with such chronic diseases, Hicks said. A vial of insulin might cost a pharmaceutical company $7 to produce while the company charges many times that much to sell the vial to a diabetic and her insurance company, he said.
“You deserve a representative who is not bought and paid for by the pharmaceutical companies who would jack that price up,” Hicks said. “I have no problem with drug companies making a profit off the innovation that led them there, but I do have a problem with price gouging Kentuckians who need it to stay alive.”
Hicks mentioned coming threats to the Affordable Care Act, which he supports and Barr steadfastly has opposed. The law protects Americans with preexisting conditions, Hicks said, and it provides health coverage to hundreds of thousands of Kentuckians through expanded Medicaid. It also pays for drug addiction treatment, he added.
If the U.S. Supreme Court strikes down the Affordable Care Act, as President Trump and other Republican elected officials are asking in a case scheduled to be heard after the election, then all of that is lost, Hicks said.
“What will it look like when (addiction treatment) is a $40,000 out-of-pocket expense for an unemployed addict?” Hicks asked. “That’s really cutting off your nose to spite your own face.”
Back at the Barr event, the congressman shared his top priorities if re-elected.
“Number one, we have to finish the job in defeating this virus. And that means making sure that we continue to work to bring diagnostics and therapies and ultimately a safe and effective vaccine to market and distribute that, provide oversight over that,” Barr said.
Barr said he also wants to spend time implementing the many recent recommendations of a House Republican task force that examined China’s Communist Party this year. Barr helped write part of the task force’s final report.
The report includes scores of proposals intended to address U.S. national security, international human rights, the need for a stronger U.S. manufacturing base and China’s early role in the pandemic. No member of the House’s Democratic majority sat on the task force, but Barr said many of the ideas it offered have bipartisan backing.
“I am encouraged, regardless of how this election shakes out, that we can work in a bipartisan way to pass these recommendations,” Barr said.
“As I’ve said before, two-thirds of those recommendations are bipartisan bills. This is not a Republican or a Democratic issue. This is about American national security, about American economic security,” he said.
