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Senate committee hearing on Price’s HHS nomination focuses on health policy, potential conflicts of interest
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The U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions held a hearing today on the nomination of Tom Price, MD, (R-Ga.) as secretary of HHS that focused on his health care policies, as well as allegations about potential conflicts of interest.
Although several senators at the hearing applauded Price’s work to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA), other senators voiced concerns that Americans are still unaware of what will replace the ACA.
“I think the American people are entitled to know what they are going to be offered as an alternative,” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), said. “There has been some conversation in this hearing about how there are Republican ideas floating around. I am sure there are Republican ideas floating around, but there is no Republican bill. There is no Republican plan. There is no Republican proposal.”
However, Price stressed the main goal of the repeal and replace process was to provide Americans with a health care system that would benefit everyone.
“American people need to appreciate that the last thing we want to do is go from a Democrat health care system to a Republican health care system,” he said. “Our goal would be to go from what we see as a Democrat health care system to an American health care system that recognizes the needs of all.”
Health care policies
As secretary of HHS, Price said he plans to work with Senators to keep drugs at a reasonable price so that all patients have access to medications they need. He also noted health savings accounts and high-deductible catastrophic coverage should remain voluntary for patients.
“Health savings accounts and high-deductible catastrophic coverage are things that make a whole lot of sense for many individuals, and we ought not force anybody to do anything,” Price said. “It ought to be a voluntary choice, but they ought to have the choice to be able to select them.”
Price said association health plans would also allow individuals who are economically aligned to purchase coverage together, even if they do not work in the same group.
“Individual health pools, which I think is one of the secrets to being able to solve the individual and small group market conundrum that we find ourselves in, would allow anybody to pool with anybody else, solely for the purpose of purchasing health coverage,” he said.
Changes in health care
During the hearing, there were several concerns about the possibility of using Price’s Empowering Patient’s First Act as a possible replacement for the ACA. According to Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), some of the changes in the Empowering Patient’s First Act include:
- allowing people with pre-exiting conditions to obtain health insurance if they maintained continuous insurance for 18 months prior;
- repealing dependent coverage available to young adults up to age 26;
- repealing current benefits, which include prescription drugs, mental health and substance use disorder benefits and maternity coverage, among others; and
- repealing the lifetime limits on coverage that help people who are sick and have high medical expenses, such as a patient with cancer.
Murray said, “I am concerned that your vision for the health care system is different than the one that I think millions of Americans are counting on.”
Despite several statements from President-elect Donald J. Trump not to cut Medicare or Medicaid, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) noted Price had previously proposed to cut Medicare by $449 billion and Medicaid by $1 trillion during the next 10 years. Price could also not provide a clear answer as to whether those statements made by Trump were true.
Price said he is opposed to the mandatory nature of the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation and he would change both the Comprehensive Care for Joint Replacement (CJR) program and the Medicare part B Drug Payment Model in such a way that would make treatment more beneficial to the patient. He also noted he plans to work with physicians to find the best way to collect patient information for electronic medical health records to improve quality of care.
“The thing that is absolutely imperative is to find out what things ought to be determined and checked; the metrics that are used, that they correlate with the quality of care that is being provided as opposed to so many things that are required right now of the physician or the provider that make it so that they are wasting their time documenting these things so that it fits into some matrix somewhere, but it does not result in higher quality of care or outcomes for that patient,” Price said.
Conflicts of interest
On the allegations of serious conflicts of interest and potential ethics violations, Price said he has followed the Office of Government Ethics.
“The Office of Government Ethics has looked at our holdings and given advice about what would need to be done in terms of divesting from certain stock holdings to make certain that there were no conflict of interests,” Price said. “We have read those and agreed to those [and] signed those. That document is online for everybody to see, so that everybody is absolutely certain that there will be no conflict of interest whatsoever.”
However, several questions remained on whether Price directly had a hand in choosing stocks specifically related to the health care industry, which caused Murray to call for a full independent investigation.
The Senate Finance Committee will vote on the approval of Price’s nomination on Tuesday, Jan. 24, at 10 a.m. EST. – by Casey Tingle
Reference:
www.c-span.org/video/?421723-1/hhs-nominee-representative-tom-price-testifies-capitol-hill
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