Dr. Greg Murphy, who serves Sampson County in the U.S. House of Representatives, spent Thursday afternoon in the county, visiting Sampson Regional Medical Center, Clinton’s wastewater treatment plant, Sampson Community College and Millstream Farms.
Abby Cavenaugh | Sampson Independent
Congressman Dr. Greg Murphy, left, and his Deputy Chief of Staff Lindy Robinson met with Sampson Regional Medical Center CEO Dr. Shawn Howerton and board of trustees chair Andy Darden on Thursday.
Abby Cavenaugh | Sampson Independent
U.S. Rep. Dr. Greg Murphy listens intently as Sampson Regional Medical Center CEO Dr. Shawn Howerton talks about issues facing rural hospitals. Also pictured are Madison Harbin, SRMC director of business development, Clinton Mayor Lew Starling and Cody Brown, Rep. Murphy’s constituent services representative.
Abby Cavenaugh | Sampson Independent
Congressman Greg Murphy toured Sampson Community College on Thursday with SCC President Dr. Bill Starling and Blair Hairr, left, vice president of academic and student affairs.
Abby Cavenaugh | Sampson Independent
Millstream Farms owner Dr. Henry Chancy explains to Congressman Murphy where they are currently located on a map of Millstream Farms.
Carson Kriger | Sampson Independent
Congressman Greg Murphy, center, speaks with Clinton Mayor Lew Starling, left, and City Manager JP Duncan at the Larkins Facility on Thursday.
Carson Kriger | Sampson Independent
Congressman Dr. Greg Murphy paid a visit to Sampson County on Thursday afternoon, talking with local leaders at Sampson Regional Medical Center, Clinton’s wastewater treatment plant, Sampson Community College and Millstream Farms.
“We are doing pretty well,” SRMC CEO Dr. Shawn Howerton told the congressman. “We’ve paid off all our debt. We’re pretty solvent. Probably our biggest risk is what’s going to happen with Medicare and Medicaid. … We see a patient, bill their insurance, and pay our bills from that. We receive no funding from the county, no funding from the state.”
Dr. Howerton shared that the hospital payers are about 50 percent Medicare, 20 percent Medicaid and then about 20 percent commercial insurance.
“What’s going to happen with Medicaid, basically it was to get auditing back into the role that Medicaid should be,” Dr. Murphy stated. “For years, from the last administration, states were not allowed to audit Medicaid, people that come on, come off all the time. That’s part of what’s going to happen to Medicaid. There’s also some eligibility requirements. We have people that are truly eligible. We want to strengthen the system for those who it’s meant for. But for people who are truly not eligible, they have insurance that comes through work, etc. I don’t know how anybody could disagree with that.”
“For another part,” he continued, “when you look at the growth of Medicaid, it’s expected to grow 6-7 percent per annum over the next decade. That’s just not sustainable. Now in North Carolina, 52 percent of the births are going to mothers on Medicaid. We can’t have that. It’s literally about trying to slow the growth of it. As time goes by, there will still be an increase in payments to Medicaid; it just won’t be as high as it was previously.”
Congressman Murphy, accompanied by Clinton Mayor Luther “Lew” Starling, was given the rundown on the capacity of the Larkins Water Pollution Control Facility by Clinton City Manager J.P. Duncan. While the business of wastewater treatment could be called a “dirty” business, it is a vital part of the city and county’s infrastructure. Chief Operator Blake Raynor explained that the water produced there consistently impressed, and was selected as the superior draft by his colleagues from other sites performing similar operations in the wider region, which, he said, could be as involved as a wine tasting.
Mayor Starling called Clinton’s water “the best tasting water in the state,” adding “we have 12 wells, and when I was elected mayor I was told these wells were like a massive John Deere tractor, and they’re just idling. It’s a great asset for us, and while we always want people to conserve, we have plenty of water.”
Third on the itinerary for the congressman’s visit was SCC, where he took a tour of the campus, visiting the Occupational Building, including HVAC and welding classrooms. Dr. Murphy also took a drive-by tour of the college’s truck driving school before heading to Millstream Farms.
Murphy’s final stop in Sampson County was Millstream Farms, near the border with neighboring Harnett County. Owned by Dr. Henry Chancy and growing sweet potatoes as well as tobacco, soybeans, cotton, and cucumbers for 30 years, the farm is a global exporter of agricultural produce, and can boast a capacity of a million bushels.
Daughter Annette Chancy was on hand to serve as guide to Congressman Murphy around the farm’s packing operations, where she and her father were able to talk hard numbers and the impact of shifting labor trends, especially the lack of income being drawn back into Federal coffers as a result of the agricultural industry’s reliance upon migrant labor programs. The impact on the bottom line for the both Millstream Farm, which lost $100,000 in cotton alone last year, and the issue is only made worse again when accounting for the ever rising cost of agricultural hardware, which Dr. Chancy noted seemed to be worsening at the same rate that prices were rising.
Murphy stated, “As it stands right now for tobacco rebates, for export, I fought hard to get that out of the bill (H.R. 1 – One Big Beautiful Bill Act) and got outvoted like 22-1…but, I’m hoping they’ll take it out in the Senate. It needs to be gone, it’s not fair to the farmer. There’s still time to fix it though, it’s gonna be a much different thing.”