Posted by Michael Wonder on 21 Dec 2016
Care for the vulnerable vs. cash for the powerful — Trump’s pick for HHS
21 December 2016 - Representative Tom Price of Georgia, an orthopaedic surgeon, will be President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services.
In the 63-year history of the Health and Human Services (HHS) Department and its predecessor, the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, only two previous secretaries have been physicians. Otis Bowen, President Ronald Reagan’s second HHS secretary, engineered the first major expansion of Medicare, championed comparative effectiveness research and, with Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, led the fight against HIV–AIDS.
Louis Sullivan, HHS secretary under President George H.W. Bush, focused his attention on care for vulnerable populations, campaigned against tobacco use, led the development of federally sponsored clinical guidelines, and introduced President Bush’s health insurance plan, which incorporated income-related tax credits and a system of risk adjustment. In their work at HHS, both men, serving in Republican administrations, drew on a long tradition of physicians as advocates for the most vulnerable, defenders of public health, and enthusiastic proponents of scientific approaches to clinical care.
