10 things Democrats want from the next HHS Secretary

The top Democrats on the Senate’s finance and health committees have outlined 51 criteria for judging President Donald Trump’s next nominee to run HHS, with many of their priorities going against the policies touted by Trump and former HHS Secretary Tom Price, MD.

Price resigned in September after POLITICO found he had racked up to $1 million in publicly funded travel costs by using charter flights and military aircraft. He had been confirmed with only Republican support in February and both authors of the letter, Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, and Patty Murray, D-Washington, had opposed his nomination.

“We will closely scrutinize any potential nominee to ensure he or she is first and foremost a champion for policies that put patients and families first and stands up to this administration’s harmful, politically driven agenda,” they wrote.

Here are 10 of their demands of the next HHS Secretary:

1. “Support a healthcare system that provides critical consumer protections and benefits, especially for people with pre-existing conditions.”
2. “Oppose any and all legislative and administrative efforts that would undermine quality, affordability or accessibility of healthcare and coverage for families.”
3. “Protect and improve” both Medicaid and Medicare.
4. “Support extension of funding for the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP),” which saw its funding expire Sept. 30.
5. “Oppose efforts to use the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation to increase costs to Medicaid and Medicare beneficiaries.”
6. “Support efforts to reduce the costs of prescription drugs.”
7. “Take steps to combat antimicrobial resistance.”
8. “Advocate for increasing vaccination and immunization rates and defend the science of supporting vaccine safety.”
9. “Support the use of evidence-based policymaking as well as efforts to improve privacy and data security with respect to any administrative data collected by” HHS.
10. “Be a careful steward of taxpayer dollars, including adhering to federal travel regulations.”

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) isn’t mentioned by name, but several of the points make reference to HHS cutting outreach and advertising efforts previously aimed at promoting the open enrollment period which began on Nov. 1.

Several of the priorities would clash with previously stated beliefs of the reported frontrunner for HHS Secretary, former Eli Lilly executive Alex Azar. For example, he has spoken out against the ACA’s Medicaid expansion and the law itself, and said insurers, not pharmaceutical companies, are to blame for high prescription drug costs.

Lobbyists have predicted the current acting secretary, Don Hargan, may have to stay in charge through 2018 due to raw feelings on Capitol Hill over the attempts to repeal and replace the ACA.

“It might be very difficult to get a new secretary confirmed,” Anders Gilberg, senior vice president of government affairs at the Medical Group Management Association told HealthExec.