Popular vote loser Donald Trump has found a replacement for Health and Human Service Secretary Tom Price who was forced to resign not because he was arguably the most corrupt member of cabinet, but because he liked to jet around on private, very expensive planes. In replacing Price, Trump settled on a guy who does have expertise in health care and who served in HHS during the George W. Bush administration, but who has deep, deep roots in the modern-day GOP. Oh, and he's a former U.S. president of one of the biggest pharmaceutical companies on the globe—Eli Lilly. Meet the nominee, Alex Azar, III.
A Yale University Law School graduate, Azar clerked for Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and, after Bill Clinton became president, worked under special counsel Kenneth Starr as he investigated Clinton’s failed Whitewater real estate investments.
He also argued against the Bush v. Gore recount in 2000, along with now-Sen. Ted Cruz. So in a lot of ways, we can blame Azar for where we're at today. In terms of health policy, he's just what you would expect.
In a June interview on Bloomberg Television, Azar made it clear he thought the administration could shift the ACA in a more conservative direction even if congressional Republicans failed to repeal much of it. "I'm not one to say many good things about Obamacare, but one of the nice things in it is it does give tremendous amount of authority to the secretary of HHS," he said.
He also supports converting Medicaid from an entitlement program covering everyone who is eligible into block grants, a long-standing GOP goal that has sparked opposition from Democrats as well as some centrist Republicans. He has opposed expanding the program under the ACA to people with slightly higher incomes.
The first rule of being health secretary under a Republican president—believing that health is something reserved for the people who can pay for it on their own.