Near the Hanover County line sits the locally owned Mechanicsville Drug Store. It’s the kind of place that still has a breakfast counter alongside greeting cards, a pharmacy and other odds-and-ends.
And Wednesday morning, in between its narrow aisles, it hosted Democratic gubernatorial candidate Abigail Spanberger.
The former congresswoman was there to talk about her plans to address healthcare costs. But she touched on why she first ran for Congress back in 2017, specifically when then-Congressman Dave Brat, who she later unseated, voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
“So many Virginians would have been impacted had that repeal gone through. It got me and many, many people motivated to run for office,” she told the press. “And so now, unfortunately we’re seeing much of the same.”
Spanberger is among the army of Democrats who’ve said hundreds of thousands of Virginians could lose healthcare coverage, via both Medicaid and ACA cuts, if the current GOP budget bill passes. After a 1AM hearing Wednesday morning, the chamber’s more conservative members further stalled the bill. President Donald Trump has reportedly told Republican leadership in the House, “Don’t f**k around with Medicaid,” though many believe cuts to social programs are key to meeting tax cuts the President has demanded.
Spanberger’s staff pointed to analysis by the Senate Joint Economic Committee Minority of a version of Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” debated over the weekend. That analysis says more than 250,000 Virginians could lose care.
“What they are doing is shameful and immoral, and just downright criminal,” said Aida Pacheco, a mother who spoke in support of Spanberger at the event. She said her daughter was dependent on Medicaid for her cancer treatments.
But others at Wednesday’s event were less sympathetic. Anne, who asked we only use her first name, was wearing a Doanld Trump hat and a GOP pin. She told Radio IQ Spanberger was lying about issues like abortion.
“I’ve seen an actual abortion up and till and at the moment of birth,” she said, noting she’d seen a video of the procedure online. “There’s something very sinister in that.”
Virginia allows third trimester abortions under strict circumstances, and according to the Virginia Department of Health, from 2016-2021, five abortions were carried out in the third trimester.
“The duty to ensure the health, safety and security of women is one that’s important for the General Assembly to move on and it’s an amendment I support,” Spanberger told the reporters Wednesday about her support for an effort to protect abortion access in the state’s constitution.
Among other attendees was Major Mansfield, a local Tea Party and GOP member. He admitted to the candidate why he was originally familiar with her: “I worked for Dave Brat a long time ago…”
“Well, you did a good job of getting him elected a couple times,” she joked. “Sorry about that last one.”
After an awkward hug, Mansfield asked Spanberger to speak at his church. She told him to work with her campaign to set something up.
Mansfield also told Radio IQ he related to Pacheco’s story. His daughter also has cancer, and she recently lost federal benefits because of what Mansfield called "administrative incompetence."
“It’s been a nightmare,” he said. “Meanwhile, she has the bills piling up.”
When asked if he thought Spanberger or her Republican opponent Winsome Earle-Sears would help with the problem, he took a long breath: “Well… I would sure hope so.”
Spanberger also detailed a number of specific steps she’d take to address healthcare costs Wednesday. She promised to “take on” Pharmacy Benefit Managers, companies that work with large companies, insurance companies and other payers to alter the prices of drugs.
Critics have called them unnecessary middlemen, and bipartisan efforts to wrangle them in were signed by Governor Glenn Youngkin this year.
Spanberger said she’d work to add more limits to PBMs or even create a single Virginia-run PBM for the Medicaid pharmacy benefit.
The candidate also promised to enforce state price transparency and predatory billing laws, as well as go after “unnecessary coverage” scammers. She also hopes to expand healthcare access to rural parts of the state via new investments, and continued investments in the state's low cost and free clinics.
“As the next governor of Virginia, I will always work to protect Virginians' quality and affordable healthcare,” she said.
Earle-Sears has yet to publicly release her plan to address healthcare costs if she were to win in November. In a statement, her campaign told Radio IQ it was “Strange how Abigail Spanberger campaigned on this exact issue while running for Congress.”
“Now she’s using the same empty promises today as she did 4 years ago,” Earle-Sears spokesperson Peyton Vogel said. “Virginians deserve someone who has a track record of solving tough problems, not just talking about them, and that’s Winsome”
Voters in Virginia will decide in November.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
