Fact Testing: Former Representative Walker’s Claim on Biden to Increase Drug Prices ‘Mostly False’ | WFAE 90.7

A former Republican congressman who elected him to the U.S. Senate in 2022 says President Joe Biden is raising drug prices for some of the most vulnerable Americans.

Mark Walker represented North Carolina’s 6th US House District in the Greensboro area. In a tweet last month, he wrote that “the contempt for President Trump and his achievements is so deep that President Biden is raising the prices of insulin and Epi-Pens for those with high costs and the uninsured.”

Paul Specht of WRAL joins us to review the claim and another one by Charlotte’s representative Alma Adams on student loan debt.

Marshall Terry: Paul, what’s Walker talking about former President Trump?

Paul Specht: In his tweet, he linked to a story about an executive order that President Trump signed before leaving office – so he signed it in December. And according to this executive order, all community health centers participating in a government discount program must provide insulin and EpiPen discounts to their patients.

Terry: And how does President Biden take it now?

Woodpecker: What happened was before Trump’s order was supposed to take effect on January 22, Biden obviously took the 20th office and his chief of staff froze all pending executive orders of the Trump administration. And so it’s a little misleading to say that drug prices are rising when, in the first place, they never fell through Trump’s executive order.

Terry: So what does Walker mean by what he said in that tweet?

Woodpecker: What he meant – and what his staff told me – was that people would still miss discounts on the program because Biden froze it. And it’s frozen, we must say, until March 22, and that’s when the Biden government is supposed to make a final decision on whether or not to allow Trump’s order. But there is still something to consider here.

The National Association of Community Health Centers has told us that they already have to pass on the discount, and in fact most of their centers are already doing so. In other words, if they get extra money from insurance companies that reimburse them for insulin or EpiPens, they should also use the money on their patients or their services. They can not just put it in the bag. And so, with that in mind, it looks like Trump’s order is already going to have a very minimal effect.

Terry: How did you rate this claim by Walker then?

Woodpecker: We mostly misjudged it. It has an element of truth here. It is possible that there is a center somewhere that does not offer the full discount on its patients, but we have not seen any evidence of that. And in fact, the leaders of the community health center say that they had to do it by law already. Trump’s order would have only required them to prove it, which they said would bind them with red tape.

Terry: Let’s move on to another tweet, this from current 12th District Congresswoman Alma Adams. She wrote last week: “Nearly 40% of borrowers with student loan debt have not completed their degree.” So, what’s the context there? Why did she tweet it?

Woodpecker: Congresswoman Adams is one of several Democrats calling on Congress and President Biden to cancel a student loan debt. This is a big problem. This is something Biden even talked about on the campaign. And so she wants him to follow it. It caught our attention, and this particular stat caught our attention because it’s so specific.

Terry: And is this true? The stat?

Woodpecker: Well, that’s true – based on the available evidence. And there is not much evidence, I would say. We contacted several experts about student loans, student loan debt and then the amount of people getting the debt. Based on data from the federal government that tracked university students between 2011 and 2017, 38.6% of students ultimately did not graduate. This does not mean that they did not go back and complete their degree after 2017; it just means they did not complete college in that six-year window.

Terry: As you said this week from Adams, lawmakers are coming to cancel student debt. As for the argument, what difference does it make if students complete their degrees or not?

Woodpecker: You know, it’s yet to be seen. If Congress decides to cancel debt, we do not know what the parameters will look like. We do not know what it will take to qualify. We do not know whether this will only apply to public federal loans and whether it will also apply to private loans taken out. But for the sake of the argument here, it means that a rescue plan will not only affect people who have studied at the university. And the criticism is on social media that “Oh, it can only help the graduates of the college; it can only help the people with white collars.” Adams says here: That’s not true. There are people who have taken out loans that ultimately did not get the benefit of a college degree, and that would help them as well.

Terry: How did you rate Adams’ claim then?

Woodpecker: We considered it mostly true and mostly just because it’s hard to prove definitively that this 40% figure is 100% accurate, because there is so little data tracking the number of deductions, if you will, with how much debt they owe. But what we have here with this six-year window has covered a lot of people, so we consider it true.

Terry: Thanks, Paul.

Woodpecker: Thank you.

These fact checks are a collaboration between PolitiFact and WRAL. You can hear them Wednesdays on WFAE’s Morning Edition.