Today’s “courtesy” hearing on the nomination of Rep. Tom Price, R.-Ga., to be secretary of HHS was not especially courteous, as some Democrats slammed the nominee on his stock purchases and his failure to commit to preserving key elements of Medicare, Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
Price refused to rule out large cuts to government health programs and the discontinuation of popular insurance protections, such as the pre-existing-conditions aspect of the ACA, instead saying repeatedly “we need to find solutions” and “we’ll make sure nobody falls through the cracks.”
At one point, under intense questioning by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., as to whether he’d allow Medicare and Medicaid to be cut, Price said, “the question presumes that money is the metric.” “Money is the metric,” Warren rejoined, adding that “the millions who rely” on those programs “are not going to be reassured that you have some metric other than dollars.”
Price frequently said he was in favor of preserving “access to coverage” when asked about programs, leading Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., to note, “’having coverage’ and ‘access to coverage’ are two different things.”
Price was clearer about his opposition to what he characterized as government overreach in health care; for example, he said he opposed the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation’s (CMMI’s) Comprehensive Care for Joint Replacement (CJR) program because of its mandatory nature.
In the several geographic areas included in the CJR program, Price said, it was “dictated to your doctor what kind of prostheses, what kind of procedure” you can get. Price introduced a bill in March, the Healthy Inpatient Procedures (HIP) Act, to delay the program.
“Even more egregious,” Price said, was a CMMI proposal (now scrapped) for a Part B drug demo which was “not a demo,” Price said, “because it’s 70% of the country.” He said such mandatory programs are “an experiment to see whether or not it works,” whereas in medical treatment, “we require that there be informed consent” for such experiments.
He did say that otherwise CMMI had the “potential” to be a helpful laboratory for experimentation.
Price had more positive things to say about some government programs. He praised Indiana’s Healthy Indiana 2.0 Medicaid program, developed by Vice President-elect Mike Pence, which relies heavily on the sort of health savings accounts (HSAs) that Republicans have long promoted as Obamacare alternatives, saying it’s “a best practice for other states to follow.”
Some Senators pressed Price on his stock transactions, which they portrayed as a conflict of interest. He purchased stock in Zimmer Biomet, for example, which makes joint replacements such as the ones affected by CJR, shortly before introducing the HIP Act. Price insisted he had abided by “the rules,” and that the Committee Senators’ stock portfolios were managed the same way his was.
The contentious four-hour-plus hearing by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee chaired by Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., will be followed next week by a hearing before the Senate Finance Committee, which will vote on Price’s nomination. His confirmation is generally expected.