Tom Price resigned as Secretary of Health and Human Services September 29, 2017, amid controversy “after racking up at least $400,000 in travel bills for chartered flights” NY Times
Senate Confirms Trump Nominee Alex Azar as Health Secretary
Senator Patty Murray of Washington, the senior Democrat on the Senate health committee, said Wednesday: “I’m alarmed that Mr. Azar believes a woman’s employer should be able to decide, based on ideology, whether or not her birth control should be covered. I’m alarmed by his extreme and out-of-touch views on Roe v. Wade,” the 1973 Supreme Court decision that established a constitutional right to abortion.
Senator Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia, explained why he had decided to oppose Mr. Azar: “The Trump administration’s determination to destroy the Affordable Care Act through executive action has destabilized our health care system and threatened coverage for millions. I fear Alex Azar could make things even worse.”
From 2012 to early 2017, Mr. Azar was the president of Lilly USA, a unit of Eli Lilly and Company, the global drug maker based in Indiana. Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, the senior Democrat on the Finance Committee, said Mr. Azar told the panel that “he had never — not even one time — signed off on a decrease in the price of a medicine.”
“On Mr. Azar’s watch,” Mr. Wyden said, “the price of Forteo, a Lilly drug used to treat osteoporosis, more than doubled,” as did the prices for Humalog, used to treat diabetes, and Strattera, for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
Mr. Azar told Congress that states should be allowed to impose work requirements on able-bodied Medicaid beneficiaries.”
https://nyti.ms/2Fbe9DF
