STATEMENT: CAP’s Topher Spiro on the Committee Vote for Tom Price as HHS Secretary
Washington, D.C. — With the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance voting to confirm Rep. Tom Price (R-GA) to be the health and human services secretary, Center for American Progress Vice President for Health Policy Topher Spiro issued the following statement:
Today, the Senate Finance Committee abdicated its responsibility to properly vet nominees and incredibly scrapped its own rules to jam through Rep. Tom Price. Rep. Price has extreme ideas to privatize Medicare and gut Medicaid for working-class Americans. He repeatedly refused to answer questions about how he would seek to replace the Affordable Care Act. Committee members rightly withheld this vote for as long as they could, given mounting concerns about insider trading and misleading testimony. It is imperative that senators withhold consent for a floor vote until these concerns can be resolved.
Related resources:
- How Tom Price Can Help Donald Trump Cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid by Harry Stein and Alex Rowell
- Tom Price Would Jeopardize LGBT People’s Health and Wellness by Sejal Singh and Laura E. Durso
For more information on this topic or to speak with an expert, contact Tom Caiazza at tcaiazza@americanprogress.org or 202.481.7141.