Rep. Tom Price 'honored' to be nominated by Trump administration

ATLANTA — Rep. Tom Price, R- Roswell, a prominent critic of the Affordable Care Act, has been named Secretary of Health and Human Services for the Trump administration.

Price's name surfaced for the Cabinet-level position earlier this month. The 62-year-old was one of several Capitol Hill committee chairmen to endorse Trump in May as it became clear the New Yorker was going to become the Republican nominee for president.

Price, an orthopedic surgeon who has represented his Roswell-based House district for 12 years, has been at the center of congressional efforts to repeal Obamacare as chairman of the House Budget Committee. He was also one of the only GOP lawmakers to design a replacement plan for the 2010 health care law — a proposal that never received a vote in committee or on the floor of the House.

Should he be confirmed as the 23^rd secretary of health and human services, Price would still play a central but different role in dismantling and eventually replacing the Affordable Care Act. This time it would be as head of the sprawling, 80,000-person department in charge of implementing such health care policies.

Under his purview would be the roughly one dozen agencies that include the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the Food and Drug Administration and the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The Cabinet position would allow Price to leverage his close relationship with Speaker Paul Ryan, a friend from their years together on the budget panel, to reimagine health care policy and make changes to entitlement programs such as Medicare.

Price’s own Obamacare replacement plan called for tearing down the system’s insurance exchanges, mandates and minimum requirements for health plans. It instead favored tax credits based on a policy holder’s age that would help customers buy insurance on individual markets.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution contributed to this article.

Cox Media Group