If there were ever an occasion for President Trump to create some buzz for his health care agenda in 2018, it was on Monday morning, in a case of man-meets-moment. Trump introduced new Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar before the Cabinet official’s swearing-in ceremony, one day before…
Trump administration officials announced late Thursday they will end reimbursements to insurers for lowering costs on individuals “immediately,” potentially destabilizing premiums on the exchange unless Congress reacts with legislation to continue the payments.
As Puerto Rico still reels in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, the mayor of San Juan has found herself the latest target of President Trump’s Twitter feed. It began on Friday when Carmen Yulin Cruz, the mayor of Puerto Rico’s capital and largest city, criticized the self-congratulatory tone the…
Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price resigned Friday afternoon, amid reports that President Trump was considering firing him over his use of private jets for government business, which provoked a public outcry over misuse of public funds.
The Brady Campaign's Brass Balls. House majority whip Steve Scalise went back to work yesterday, and it was an emotional day on Capitol Hill. But, to paraphrase Rahm Emanuel, you never want to let a crisis go to waste. Insert the anti-gun Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. Here's their welcome…
Things keep getting worse for Tom Price, the Health and Human Services secretary who has taken numerous chartered private or government jets to travel around the country and the world, all on the taxpayer’s dime. Nearly every day the total bill for Price’s known flights keeps going up—the latest…
Space comes to Wisconsin. I'm a huge fan of the website Atlas Obscura. Every neat place I've wanted to visit (especially abandoned things) is on there, and many places I've visited have been because of their site. Part of my bucket list is derived from there, too. Their newsletter is a welcome…
President Trump announced on Wednesday the broad outlines of a sweeping tax reform package that would simplify and cut taxes. He praised the framework as “a middle-class miracle” and “a tax code to put American jobs first.”
The Republican tax reform gets its big introduction on Wednesday by way of a presidential speech in Indiana. President Donald Trump will deliver an afternoon address in Indianapolis, joined by, among others, the state’s Democratic senator, Joe Donnelly.
Stories about expensive presidential vacationing appeal to very few people outside reporters and political hacks. For all our belief in equality, we Americans will tolerate a touch of royalism in our presidents. Barack Obama’s travel may have cost taxpayers around $10 million a year, and Donald…
The squeeze is on Paul Manafort, the former chairman of Donald Trump’s campaign who has become a major target of special counsel Robert Mueller’s aggressive investigation. The latest details from the Washington Post describe email evidence that Manafort offered “private briefings” about the Trump…
Nevadans living in 14 of Nevada's 17 counties who want to purchase coverage on the state's Obamacare exchange won't have any insurers to choose from next year, after two insurers decided to exit the marketplace for 2018.
Between the fundraising and national attention, it all appeared just peachy for Jon Ossoff. Then Georgia voted.
Of all the crazy ways that members of Congress are above the law, the fact that politicians and their staff are largely immune from insider trading laws has to be near the top of the list. (Oh and it's also a problem for federal employees.) It boggles the mind to think of the conflicts of interest…
The Republican Party avoided a demoralizing upset Tuesday when it forced Democrat Jon Ossoff into a special election runoff to fill a vacant conservative Georgia House district.
Despite being forums to question and receive testimony from public officials and experts, House committee hearings often rank near Cher's Twitter feed as informative sources of information about politics and government. Sometimes this is because of the prevarication of the witnesses. Almost always…
The Congressional Budget Office is finally out with its analysis of the Trump-backed American Health Care Act, and the results are, well, not great, Bob! The big headline, and the big headache for the White House, is the estimate that in less than a decade 24 million fewer people would have…
Tom Price, President Trump’s choice for secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), has the distinction of being a better fit for the department he's been picked to lead than any other Trump cabinet nominee. But this hasn't helped Price gain Senate confirmation.
Democratic senator Richard Blumenthal said he would vote against Rep. Tom Price to be secretary of Health and Human Services because the Georgia lawmaker and physician is "trying to destroy a woman's right to health care."
The weather Monday in Washington was windy, rainy, and messy—but those were hardly the conditions inside the West Wing on what the Trump administration was calling its first "working day." President Trump had an early meeting with CEOs of some of the country's largest manufacturers, a phone call…
Democrats have taken stock of Dr. Tom Price's financial dealings before the Senate votes on his nomination to be secretary of Health and Human Services. The two most recent lines of attack, reported in separate media stories last week, concern health care investments Price said were made at the…
Today is Inauguration Day, so it seems fitting to kick things off with the inaugural edition of this new feature here at THE WEEKLY STANDARD. For the first 100 (or so) days of the Donald J. Trump administration, look to this space for inside coverage of our 45th president, his White House, and his…
Rep. Tom Price, the nominee to head the Department of Health and Human Services in the new presidential administration, said during his confirmation hearing Wednesday that he was committed to President-elect Donald Trump's vision of providing "insurance for everybody."
President-elect Donald Trump says his proposal to replace Obamacare will guarantee "insurance for everybody" and "great health care" that is "much less expensive and much better." Here's more from the Washington Post's interview with Trump:
A new report, cited in various media outlets, claims that repealing Obamacare would "cost roughly $350 billion" over a decade and "leave no funds available for 'replacement' legislation." In truth, repealing Obamacare and replacing it with a good conservative alternative would cut federal spending…
When it comes to trying to decide what the worst part of Obamacare is, there's no shortage of contenders. From a constitutional standpoint, the worst part is its unprecedented individual mandate. From the standpoint of the republic's overall well-being, the worst part is its consolidation and…
Tucked away in Jason Zengerle's New York magazine profile of outgoing Senate minority leader Harry Reid is a little nugget about what Senate Democrats and their new leader, Chuck Schumer, plan to take their first stand on in the new Congress: Donald Trump's nominee for Health and Human Services,…
Several years ago, the American Medical Association supported Obamacare. But on Wednesday, it decided to support a noted opponent of the law for a key government position: Georgia representative Tom Price, who Donald Trump has selected to be Secretary of Health and Human Services in his…
Opponents of Obamacare should be greatly encouraged by President-elect Donald Trump's pick of House Budget Committee Chairman Tom Price to be the Secretary of Health and Human Services. Price, an M.D., has advanced the most serious Obamacare alternative to date on Capitol Hill. His legislation…
The WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with online editor Michael Warren on Trump's HHS pick—a Georgia Republican doctor with a plan to replace Obamacare.
The issue of repealing and replacing Obamacare is going to be central to the role of Secretary of Health and Human Services in the Donald Trump administration. The president-elect's choice for the job, Georgia representative Tom Price, has spent plenty of time working on the matter in his role as…
Tom Price, a Republican congressman from Georgia and orthopedic surgeon, is Donald Trump's choice for secretary of Health and Human Services. The New York Times reports:
Cleveland
Senator Orrin Hatch and Representative Tom Price have just reintroduced the Employee Rights Act, which would make some very necessary updates to labor law. Naturally, unions are engaged in the usual hyperbole attacking the legislation. See, for example, this March op-ed from the president of the…
The Republican congressional leadership has been nominally--but sometimes it seems only nominally--committed to repealing Obamacare and replacing it with a conservative alternative. Now one of the two leading candidates for House majority leader—the number-two position in leadership—is Dr. Tom…
After John Boehner announced he would be resigning as speaker of the House, Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy said he would run to fill his position. Now there's a second congressional leadership race to fill the spot held by McCarthy.
In their review of House Budget Committee chairman Tom Price’s newly released Obamacare alternative, Bloomberg’s editors strain to make a virtue out of Obamacare’s maddening complexity. Whereas no one knows until tax time the following year what, if anything, they will be getting in subsidies under…
Assuming a Republican wins the presidency in 2016, his top domestic priority will be—and should be—to repeal and replace Obamacare. The health care overhaul is the cornerstone of President Obama’s project to transform America into a top-down administrative state. The effects of repealing Obamacare,…
The White House has submitted its latest budget proposal to Congress, and the Republican chairs of the budget committees in both the Senate and the House are criticizing the plan for increasing spending and raising taxes. In a joint statement House budget chair Tom Price of Georgia and Senate…
The House of Representatives will take up a bill that would stop the Department of the Treasury, including the Internal Revenue Services, from implementing and enforcing the provisions of Obamacare. The bill, authored by Georgia Republican Tom Price and co-sponsored by 114 other House members, is…
Tom Price, a Republican congressman from Georgia, will not run for the U.S. Senate next year. Price told the Marietta Daily Journal that his "assessment at this point is the House is the battleground for politics in this country right now" and he will seek sixth term for his metro Atlanta House…
Congressman Tom Price, a Republican, has said he will not announce a decision about running next year for the Senate in Georgia until May, but a pair of fundraising emails obtained by THE WEEKLY STANDARD indicate the GOP congressman may be leaning toward getting in the race. Here's an excerpt from…
Republican Karen Handel, the former Georgia secretary of state, gubernatorial candidate, and vice president for the Susan G. Komen Foundation, is moving closer to running for the Senate next year to succeed Republican Saxby Chambliss. Georgia political blog Peach Pundit reports:
“I have some discomfort with all Republican primaries because they’re all family squabbles,” said Tom Price, the 58-year-old Republican House member from north of Atlanta. “My brother and I used to fight almost daily,” Price, the middle child among five brothers and sisters, said. “My mom’s only…
Two-term Republican senator Saxby Chambliss of Georgia will reportedly retire at the end of 2014. Jim Galloway at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution has the details:
House Republican Tom Price of Georgia refused to say whether he would challenge Senator Saxby Chambliss in the 2014 GOP primary. In a Tuesday afternoon appearance on CNN, Price was asked by host Brooke Baldwin if he would "mount a primary challenge" against Chambliss. He at first dodged the…
Georgia-based blogger and radio host Erick Erickson will not be running for the U.S. Senate, Erickson writes at RedState.com:
Erick Erickson, a conservative blogger, radio talk show host, and CNN contributor, may be considering a run for Senate in Georgia. On his radio show Tuesday, Erickson stated there are "a lot of people pledging a lot of money" for a primary challenge against incumbent Republican senator Saxby…
Saxby Chambliss, the two-term senior senator from Georgia, could face a Republican primary challenge in 2014.
Washington Republican Cathy McMorris Rodgers was elected by the House Republican conference as its chair for the upcoming Congress, reports Jill Jackson of CBS News. McMorris Rodgers, who defeated Georgia congressman Tom Price for the position, will rank fourth in the House leadership. Price had…
When it comes to finding a leadership role in the next Congress, Tom Price is running out of options. Price, a stalwart conservative House member from Georgia, is the outgoing Republican Policy Committee chairman, which ranked him fifth in the GOP House leadership. His position gave movement…
As they filed out of the Capitol Thursday evening, a few Republican House members told THE WEEKLY STANDARD what they thought of President Obama's address to Congress on jobs:
Can the debt deal pass the House of Representatives? House speaker John Boehner has said he believes he has the votes from the Republican caucus, and Steny Hoyer, the Democratic minority whip, says he can deliver 80 to 100 votes from his side of the aisle. Key GOP House members who have said…
Downplaying the role of the controversial Independent Patient Advisory Board (IPAB), Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said today that the Affordable Care Act “leaves all final decisions” on changing Medicare payment costs in the hands of Congress. “IPAB is a backstop, a…