Tom Price, Obamacare Critic, Is Said to Be Trump’s Choice for Health Secretary
By
ROBERT PEAR
NOV. 28, 2016
Photo
Representative Tom Price last week at Trump Tower in Manhattan. As secretary of
health and human services, Mr. Price would be responsible for a department
with an annual budget of more than $1 trillion. Credit Hilary Swift for The New
York Times
WASHINGTON — If President-elect Donald J. Trump wanted a cabinet secretary who
could help him dismantle and replace President Obama’s
health care law,
he could not have found anyone more prepared than Representative Tom Price, who
has been studying how to accomplish that goal for more than six years.
Mr. Price, an orthopedic surgeon who represents many of the northern suburbs of
Atlanta, speaks with the self-assurance of a doctor about to perform another
joint-replacement procedure. He knows the task and will proceed with brisk
efficiency.
Mr. Trump has picked Mr. Price, a six-term Republican congressman, to be
secretary of health and human services, Mr. Trump’s transition team announced
Tuesday
morning.
Also on Monday, Mr. Trump
met with David H. Petraeus,
the highly decorated but scandal-scarred former military commander, who has
emerged as a new contender for secretary of state.
Continue reading the main story
While some Republicans have attacked the Affordable Care Act without proposing
an alternative, Mr. Price has introduced bills offering a detailed,
comprehensive
replacement plan in every Congress since 2009, when Democrats started work on
the legislation. Many of his ideas are included in the “Better Way” agenda
issued several months ago by House Republicans.
In debate on the Affordable Care Act in 2009, Mr. Price railed against “a
stifling and oppressive federal government,” a theme that pervades his politics.
His most frequent objection to the law is that it interferes with the ability
of patients and doctors to make medical decisions — a concern he will surely
take with him if he wins Senate confirmation.
“The practicing physician and the patient could not have a better friend in
that office than Tom Price,” said Representative Michael C. Burgess, Republican
of Texas, who is also a physician.
Mr. Price, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, said he felt events had
borne out his warnings about the health law.
“Congressional Democrats and the Obama administration blatantly ignored the
voices of the American people and rammed through a hyperpartisan piece of
legislation
that will have a disastrous effect on our nation’s health care system,” Mr.
Price said shortly after Mr. Obama signed the bill in 2010.
Now, he says: “Premiums have gone up, not down. Many Americans lost the health
coverage they were told time and time again by the president that they could
keep. Choices are fewer.”
The legislation Mr. Price has proposed, the Empowering Patients First Act,
would repeal the Affordable Care Act and offer age-adjusted tax credits for the
purchase of individual and family health insurance policies.
The bill would create incentives for people to contribute to health savings
accounts; offer grants to states to subsidize insurance for “high-risk
populations”;
allow insurers licensed in one state to sell policies to residents of others;
and authorize business and professional groups to provide coverage to members
through “association health plans.”
As secretary, Mr. Price would be responsible for a department with an annual
budget of more than $1 trillion, health programs that insure more than 100
million Americans, and agencies that regulate food and drugs and sponsor much
of the nation’s biomedical research.
AdvertisementFrom his days as a Georgia state senator, Mr. Price, now 62, has
been a voice for doctors, often aligned with the positions of the American
Medical Association
and the Medical Association of Georgia.
He has introduced legislation that would make it easier for doctors to defend
themselves against medical malpractice lawsuits and to enter into private
contracts with
Medicare
beneficiaries. Under such contracts, doctors can, in effect, opt out of
Medicare and charge more than the amounts normally allowed by the program’s
rules.
Mr. Price’s intimate knowledge of Medicare could serve him well. The secretary
of health and human services sets Medicare payment policies for doctors,
updates the physician fee schedule each year and issues rules that can have a
huge influence on the practice of medicine. The government is carrying out
a law that changes how doctors are paid under Medicare, and Medicare often
serves as a model for private insurers.
On the other hand, as secretary, Mr. Price would need a broader perspective. He
would have to consider not only the interests of doctors, but also the needs
of Medicare beneficiaries,
Medicaid
patients and taxpayers who finance those programs.
Mr. Price is a strong conservative who invariably excites the audience at the
annual Conservative Political Action Conference. His website lists him as
a member of the
Tea Party
Caucus. His district includes territory once represented by Newt Gingrich, a
former speaker of the House. But Mr. Price is no bomb thrower. He works within
the system and has led two groups that promote conservative policies in the
House.
Born in Lansing, Mich., Mr. Price went to college and medical school at the
University of Michigan, did his residency at Emory University in Atlanta and
was medical director of the orthopedic clinic at Grady Memorial Hospital in
Atlanta.
He says he got into politics because he found that officials in Washington and
Atlanta who had no medical training were making decisions that affected his
ability to take care of patients.
Speaking at a political conference in early 2010, Mr. Price said he was proud
to join fellow conservatives in an effort to beat back a “vile liberal agenda.”
In a similar vein, he complained this year that Obama administration officials
were trying to “commandeer clinical decision-making” by forcing doctors to
participate in experiments that test new ways of paying for prescription drugs,
hip and knee replacement operations, and heart surgery for Medicare patients.
As secretary of health and human services, Mr. Price could carry out the advice
he has given Mr. Obama: “Stop these mandatory demonstration projects.”
Mr. Price is also an outspoken opponent of abortion and has consistently
received ratings of 100 percent from the National Right to Life Committee and
scores
of zero from the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.
Gay rights groups have also been critical of Mr. Price. Sarah Kate Ellis, the
president and chief executive of GLAAD, formerly known as the Gay and Lesbian
Alliance Against Defamation, said Mr. Price was “completely unfit” to be health
secretary.
When the Supreme Court ruled last year that the Constitution guarantees a right
to
same-sex marriage,
Mr. Price said it was “not only a sad day for marriage, but a further judicial
destruction of our entire system of checks and balances.”
Also on Tuesday, Mr. Trump said that he had chosen Seema Verma, a health policy
expert in Indiana, to be administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid
Services. Working in state government and then as president of a consulting
company, she helped Indiana expand Medicaid eligibility under the Affordable
Care Act, with conservative policies that emphasized “personal responsibility.”
Ms. Verma worked closely with Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana, the vice
president-elect, and with former Gov. Mitch Daniels, also a Republican. She has
won praise
from health care providers and state legislators of both parties. She has also
provided technical assistance and advice to Medicaid officials in other
states.
Under Mr. Obama, the agency that runs Medicare and Medicaid has also led
efforts to carry out the Affordable Care Act, supervising most of the online
marketplaces
where people can buy health insurance and obtain subsidies to help cover the
cost.
Maggie Haberman contributed reporting from New York.
A version of this article appears in print on November 29, 2016, on page A1 of
the New York edition with the headline: Fierce Critic of Health Care Law
Said to Be Pick for Health Dept.
Source:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/28/us/politics/tom-price-secretary-health-and-human-services.html?_r=0
