Skip to main content
Premium Trial:

Request an Annual Quote

Tom Price Tapped for HHS Secretary

President-elect Donald Trump has selected Representative Tom Price (R-Ga.) to be the next secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, the New York Times reports. HHS oversees the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the National Institutes of Health, among other agencies. 

Price, an orthopedic surgeon who has represented the northern Atlanta suburbs since 2005, is a sharp critic of President Barack Obama's healthcare law and has introduced bills to Congress to replace the Affordable Care Act. NPR adds that Price's bill relies on the same budget reconciliation rules that Democrats used to pass the ACA to defund it. This would leave certain provisions of the law in place, such as permitting children to remain on their parents' health insurance plan until age 26 and requiring insurers to cover people with pre-existing conditions, it adds. Vox notes that it would also eliminate the expansion of Medicaid.

The Times adds that in a 2009 debate on the ACA, Price bemoaned "a stifling and oppressive federal government."

"The practicing physician and the patient could not have a better friend in that office than Tom Price," Rep. Michael Burgess (R-Texas), also a physician, tells the Times.

However, in a statement, Rep. Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ) says he is "deeply concerned" about the form a Price-led HHS might take, citing Price's proposals to repeal the ACA, privatize Medicare, and cut trillions from Medicaid.