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Tom Price pushed to reveal Trump’s Obamacare replacement in hearing
Rep. Tom Price of Georgia suggested in his Senate confirmation hearing Tuesday that President Donald Trump’s Obamacare replacement plan may not be as close to finished as the president has claimed.
“President Trump said that he’s working with you on a replacement plan for the ACA, which is nearly finished and will be revealed after your confirmation. Is that true?” asked Sen. Sherrod Brown, a Democrat from Ohio.
“It’s true that he said that, yes,” Price replied, to laughter in the hearing room. Price is Trump’s nominee to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.
Brown pressed him, asking if that meant the president had “lied” when he said the pair of them had a plan that was close to finished.
“I’ve had conversations with the president about health care,” Price said, refusing to answer Brown’s question about whether it was a “lie.”
Overall, the Republican congressman and doctor had an easier ride in the Senate Finance Committee hearing than the one he received last week at the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, which is stocked with many of the Democratic Party’s more combative figures, including Sens. Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Al Franken.
Still, the Finance Committee’s Democrats grilled Price over his personal trading in health stocks while voting on legislation affecting the health care industry. His past support for dramatically cutting Medicaid also came in for scrutiny.
Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon blasted Price for underreporting the amount of stock he directed his broker to buy in an Australian pharmaceutical company, Innate Immunotherapeutics, last year. Price said a “clerical error” caused him to underreport the $250,000 in stock he owned as about $50,000. He learned about the company from his GOP colleague Rep. Chris Collins of New York, who is on the company’s board, and purchased some of the stock at a special, discounted rate. Price insisted he had been transparent and ethical and would divest himself of the stock if confirmed.
None of the committee’s Republicans appeared troubled by the stock issue, suggesting the Democrats, who are in the minority, will be unsuccessful in blocking Price’s nomination on this issue. “I feel like I’ve been asked to be a character witness in a felony trial,” said Sen. Johnny Isakson of Georgia, arguing the Democrats were exaggerating their objections to Price.
Sen. Orrin Hatch, the committee’s chairman, criticized his Democratic colleagues for “overly partisan” treatment of Trump’s cabinet nominees. Sen. Claire McCaskill, a Democrat from Missouri, pushed back on that, noting that Trump’s first nominee was confirmed 98 to 1 and more than 80 senators backed his second choice.
Price stressed that he would act in a bipartisan way as secretary and that he wanted to make sure the new, not-yet-formed health care plan would insure more Americans than Obamacare now does. But he was evasive when asked if no one would lose coverage after Obamacare is repealed, and he refused to flesh out the president’s plan for the senators.
Democratic senators said they were worried the president’s plan would mirror Price’s past support for health care and budget reforms that cut Medicaid and Medicare. At one point Price denied telling a Politico reporter in 2012 that requiring insurers to cover people with pre-existing medical conditions was a “terrible idea.” Price did, however, commit to continue allowing women to access contraception for free, an Obamacare reform.
Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey asked Price if he believed the scientific consensus that vaccines do not cause autism. “The science in that incidence is that it does not, but there are individuals across this country—”
Mendendez cut him off. “I’m not asking about individuals, I’m talking about science,” he said.
Trump has said he believes vaccines are linked to autism, a claim experts are worried could affect policy and put public health at risk.
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