President Trump on Monday announced his nomination of Alex Azar, a former top executive at Eli Lilly and Company, as the new health and human services secretary.
“Happy to announce, I am nominating Alex Azar to be the next HHS Secretary,” Trump tweeted. “He will be a star for better healthcare and lower drug prices!”
Happy to announce, I am nominating Alex Azar to be the next HHS Secretary. He will be a star for better healthcare and lower drug prices!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 13, 2017
Azar would replace Dr. Tom Price, who resigned from his post in September after reports that he took private jets for work and personal travel.
Azar is a previous deputy secretary at Health and Human Services, where he served under former President George W. Bush. Until January he also spent nearly a decade at Eli Lilly affiliate Lilly USA, where he was president for five years and worked on international and federal government affairs and public policy. He also was on the board of directors at the Biotechnology Innovation Organization, a pharmaceutical lobbying group.
Trump blasted drug companies while on the campaign trail, saying that they were “getting away with murder” on pricing. He has not specified how he would work to lower drug prices but has met with Democrats to discuss some avenues.
As head of the Department of Health and Human Services, Azar, if confirmed by the Senate, would oversee a sprawling, $1.1 trillion agency that includes other sub-agencies, such as those tasked with approval of drugs and devices, carrying out public health initiatives and funding medical research.
Azar also will oversee the delivery of Obamacare, which Trump has said he wants to repeal and replace. Congress failed this year to pass a bill that would do so, but some senators have vowed to try again in 2018.
As secretary, Azar may be called upon to alter certain parts of Obamacare. Under Price, open enrollment became shorter and the government spent less. Still, sign-ups so far are outpacing those under the Obama years. Azar has called Obamacare a “fundamentally broken system.”
“It’s certainly circling the drain,” Azar said in response to a question on Fox Business in May about whether Obamacare was dead. “Obamacare plans are following the laws of economics. If you’re running an insurance company you’ve got to be able to make money. To make money running an insurance company you have to be able to predict risk.”
Azar said one way the federal government could help stabilize Obamacare would be to create a reinsurance fund. The program would allow federal dollars to go toward paying for medical claims of more costly enrollees, thereby keeping the premiums for other customers lower.
“I don’t think there is going to be a lot of appetite for doing that either in the Trump administration or up in Congress,” he said.
Azar is a conservative who in the 1990s worked as a clerk to Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, and for independent council Kenneth Starr, who investigated Bill Clinton when was president.
Eric Hargan, who was confirmed as deputy Health and Human Services secretary in October, has been the acting secretary as the Trump administration sought Price’s replacement.
