The Senate Finance Committee voted Wednesday to advance President Trump’s nominee to serve as head of Health and Human Services.
The vote was 15-12, with Sen. Tom Carper of Delaware the only Democrat to support him.
Azar now faces a Senate floor vote, where he is expected to be confirmed.
Two Democrats, Sens. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and Joe Manchin of West Virginia, have said they would vote for Azar’s nomination, giving Republicans more than enough votes to pass him. Republicans have a 51-49 majority in the Senate, and Cabinet nominees need only 51 votes to be confirmed.
Heitkamp called Azar, a former Eli Lilly executive and HHS veteran under the George W. Bush administration, “incredibly competent.”
Still, some Democrats have railed against Azar, and have said that he raised the prices of multiple drugs while he was the head of Eli Lilly’s U.S. division from 2012 to 2017. Democrats are skeptical that Azar will do enough to rein in drug prices.
Azar has said that the system does not incentivize drug makers to lower prices. He said that combating high prices will be one of his top priorities.
“Every incentive in this system is towards higher prices,” Azar said at his Senate Finance confirmation hearing. “No one company is going to fix that system. That is why I want to be here working with you.”
However, Democrats pointed to several price increases that occurred while Azar was at Eli Lilly. Chief among them was the bone growth drug Forteo, which rose in price from $1,032 to $2,728.
If Azar is confirmed, he will replace former secretary Tom Price, who resigned last year due to a scandal over his private jet use.
