Andrew Harnik/AP
Health and Human Services nominee Tom Price answered a lot of written questions from Finance Committee members after his hearing last week, and while you won't learn a lot about his stock dealings, you will learn more (in some cases) about issues he'd have to deal with at HHS. Here are some highlights from his answers:
- The "gag order" for HHS employees is "standard" for a new administration and has a "clear and expedited process for adequate review" for how to communicate with members of Congress.
- The Healthy Indiana Plan — written by Seema Verma, the likely next head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services — "has long been and continues to be a national model for state-led Medicaid reforms."
- Said the Trump administration's Obamacare replacement plan is "a work in progress."
- Said he would defer to Congress on whether the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation should continue.
- Said he supports the goals of new health care models like accountable care organizations "in general," but that their successes have been "modest to date."
- Said only that "there likely will be overlap" between his goals on cancer research and the goals of former Vice President Joe Biden's "cancer moonshot" program.