Phone Script:
I am calling to voice my concerns and urge you to vote “NO” on the selection of Representative Tom Price as Health and Human Services Secretary. Price has voted NO to expanding medical coverage to children, the mentally ill, or requiring price negotiation for prescription drugs for Medicare part D. He also traded more than $300,000 in shares of health-related companies while sponsoring and advocating legislation that potentially could affect those companies’ stocks–a clear conflict of interest. How can we confidently expect him to lead the Department of Health and Human Services if he puts his own financial interests above the people?
Background and Research
Chair, House Budget Committee
Member, Ways and Means Committee
Member, Congressional Health (subcommittee of Ways and Means)
Voting Record
Health Care:
- Voted YES on the Ryan Budget: Medicare choice, tax & spending cuts. (Apr 2011)
- Voted YES on repealing the “Prevention and Public Health” slush fund. (Apr 2011)
- Voted NO on regulating tobacco as a drug. (Apr 2009)
- Voted NO on expanding the Children’s Health Insurance Program. (Jan 2009)
- Voted YES on overriding veto on expansion of Medicare. (Jul 2008)
- Voted NO on giving mental health full equity with physical health. (Mar 2008)
- Voted NO on Veto override: Extend SCHIP to cover 6M more kids. (Jan 2008)
- Voted NO on adding 2 to 4 million children to SCHIP eligibility. (Oct 2007)
- Voted NO on requiring negotiated Rx prices for Medicare part D. (Jan 2007)
- Voted YES on denying non-emergency treatment for lack of Medicare co-pay. (Feb 2006)
- Repeal any federal health care takeover. (Jul 2010)
- Deauthorize funding for Obamacare. (Jul 2010)
- Repeal the Job-Killing Health Care Law. (Jan 2011)
Abortion:
- Voted YES on banning federal health coverage that includes abortion. (May 2011)
- Voted NO on expanding research to more embryonic stem cell lines. (Jan 2007)
- Voted NO on allowing human embryonic stem cell research. (May 2005)
- Voted YES on restricting interstate transport of minors to get abortions. (Apr 2005)
- Rated 100% by the NRLC, indicating a pro-life stance. (Dec 2006)
- Bar funding for abortion under federal Obamacare plans. (Jul 2010)
- Prohibit federal funding for abortion. (May 2011)
- Prohibit federal funding to groups like Planned Parenthood. (Jan 2011)
- No family planning assistance that includes abortion. (Jan 2013)
- Grant the pre-born equal protection under 14th Amendment. (Jan 2007)
(http://www.ontheissues.org/GA/Tom_Price.htm)
Conflicts of Interest:
- “President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to run the Health and Human Services Department traded more than $300,000 in shares of health-related companies over the past four years while sponsoring and advocating legislation that potentially could affect those companies’ stocks.” Wall Street Journal, December 22,2016
- “Rep. Louise Slaughter, a New York Democrat and author of the 2012 Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act, sent the letter on Tuesday morning asking the Securities and Exchange Commission to determine whether Mr. Price made the trades based upon information he gleaned on the health panel.” Wall Street Journal, January 10, 2017
- “When tiny Australian biotech firm Innate Immunotherapeutics needed to raise money last summer, it didn’t issue stock on the open market. Instead, it offered a sweetheart deal to “sophisticated U.S. investors,” company documents show. It sold nearly $1 million in discounted shares to two American congressmen sitting on House committees with the potential power to advance the company’s interests, according to company records and congressional filings. They paid 18 cents a share for a stake in a company that was rapidly escalating in value, rising to more than 90 cents as the company promoted an aggressive plan to sell to a major pharmaceutical company. Analysts said the stock price could go to $2.” PBS, January 13, 2017
- “HACKMAN: Mr. Price was on the committee that wrote this law that among other things speeds up the process by which drugs and other medical devices can be approved. That really impacts companies that Mr. Price was also buying stock in at the same time that he was writing and passing this legislation, like Innate Immunotherapeutics, which has a drug. It’s a multiple sclerosis drug that stands to benefit from accelerated passage through the FDA.
SIEGEL: Did the stock price increase?
HACKMAN: The stock price doubled after he invested it in August.” NPR, December 23, 2016