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January 23, 2017 at 01:57 PM
I think the reality is that whatever Democrats hate, or find themselves surprised to like, about Donald Trump’s U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, a little cabinet secretary stock won’t have all that much to do with those reactions.
This week, Democrats in the Senate grilled Rep. Tom Price, R-Georgia, Trump’s nominee to be the next HHS secretary, over possible violations of congressional conflict-of-interest guidelines.
But, of course, the fundamental problem with Price is that he’s intent on dismantling the Affordable Care Act.
Related: HHS nominee hearing bares Senate ACA stabilization fight
He may not necessarily have the world’s most detailed slidedeck to support his proposals for replacing the ACA. But, on the other hand, whatever the recent presidential elections proved, it seems fair to say that many voters are skeptical of the player with the best slidedeck. They want to see a 140-character tweet that seems to make sense at first glance, not to wade through 30 pages of graphs that may well prove to them that up is down and back is front.
Many voters out in the areas where the only decent jobs with benefits left are government jobs are tired of looking at graphs and slidedecks that make it look, on a monitor, as if they are doing well. Meanwhile, out in the brick-and-mortar world, they feel awful.
On the other hand, the HHS secretary is in charge of some of the biggest health insurance programs in the world. Not just the ACA public exchange system, and the ACA rules and programs that affect the off-exchange commercial health insurance market, but also Medicare, Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program.
Price is an orthopedic surgeon. He wants patients to get great care. He wants his colleagues to do well without so many horrible hassles. He probably wants every other good thing anyone can want.
