WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump's choice to become health and human services secretary told a Senate committee Tuesday that the new administration believes that people with existing illnesses should not be denied health insurance.
But Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., committed to no details on that or any aspects of how Republicans will reshape the previous president's Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
Price, who would be at the center of GOP efforts to scuttle Barack Obama's statute and create new programs, frustrated Democrats probing for details of what Republicans will do. Instead, he repeatedly told them that the GOP goal is making health care affordable and "accessible for every single American" and to provide choices.
At a Senate Finance Committee hearing on Price's nomination, Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., told him the coming Republican drive to scrap the health care overhaul will garner no Democratic votes and warned: "What we have after the repeal is Trumpcare."
[PRESIDENT TRUMP: Details on administration, previous coverage, photos, videos]
Early in the hearing, Price sidestepped a series of questions about the effects of the order Trump issued just hours after his swearing-in and whether agencies will begin carrying it out before a plan exists to replace the Affordable Care Act. Trump's executive order allowed federal agencies to curb fiscal burdens imposed by the Affordable Care Act and give states more flexibility to interpret it.
"I commit to working with you," Price finally told the committee's top Democrat, Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, after reiterating that his goal is to ensure all Americans have an opportunity for access to health insurance. The Affordable Care Act's goal was universal coverage.
"We didn't get an answer," Wyden retorted.
Democrats also condemned Price, a 12-year House veteran, for purchasing stocks in health care companies that could benefit from legislation he pushed. Wyden called that "a conflict of interest and an abuse of his position."
Price, an orthopedic surgeon, told Wyden: "The reality is everything I did was ethical, aboveboard, legal and transparent."
Wyden questioned Price about the congressman's purchase of about 400,000 shares in August of Innate Immunotherapeutics Ltd., an Australian drug company. Wyden said Price had bought the stock at prices available only to insider investors, had understated the value of those shares in papers filed with the Finance Committee, and had obtained the stocks at a time when he could affect congressional legislation.
Price appeared a day before Republicans head to Philadelphia for meetings on how to revamp the nation's health care system. After solidly opposing Obama's law since Democrats pushed it through Congress in 2010, Trump's White House victory puts them in position to deliver on their pledge to repeal and replace it, but they've not decided how.
Democrats questioned Price about whether a Republican replacement would continue requiring insurers to cover people with pre-existing illnesses. Before Obama's law, insurance companies did not have to do that because such people can be extremely costly to cover, though Trump has said he supports continuing such coverage.
"Nobody ought to lose insurance because they got a bad diagnosis," Price said.
He said one way to cover people who are already sick is with high-risk pools, in which people with high medical costs are pooled together to avoid having their expenses drive up premiums for healthier consumers. In the past, that has provided costly coverage to limited numbers of people.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, praised Price and said he'll schedule a committee vote on sending Price's nomination to the full Senate as quickly as possible.
The hearing is the second time in a week that Price, who is one of Congress' most ardent critics of the Affordable Care Act, has appeared on Capitol Hill for questions about his fitness to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.
The Affordable Care Act has expanded coverage by 20 million Americans, including around half who benefit from the statute's expansion of Medicaid to lower-income people.
Price also avoided directly answering whether Republicans will propose turning Medicaid -- currently provided to anyone who qualifies -- into "block grants." Those are lump sums of money that would go to states so they can make coverage decisions.
Until recently chairman of the House Budget Committee, Price has supported turning Medicaid into a block grant. The House's most recent budget proposed cutting the program by $1 trillion over the next decade.
Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., told Price that GOP proposals on Medicaid send signals that they want to "cut the federal government's commitment of access to minorities" for health care.
Price said judging Medicaid's effectiveness by money is "measuring the wrong thing." He said, instead, its success should be judged by "outcome, whether people are covered."
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Haley OK'd for U.N.
As other Republican-led committees paved the way for more of Trump's Cabinet nominees to be approved, the full Senate chamber confirmed Trump's pick for U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley won strong support for the U.N. post despite her lack of foreign policy experience. Senators voted 96-4 on Haley's nomination.
Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, the Republican chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, said Haley is a proven leader who will be a "fierce advocate" at the U.N. for American interests.
Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., said Haley didn't convince him that she'll serve effectively. The U.S. ambassador to the international body should be an expert on international affairs, Coons said, "not someone who will be learning on the job."
The vote on Haley capped a day when the GOP-led panels endorsed Trump's choices to lead the Transportation, Housing, and Commerce departments.
The Senate Commerce Committee approved by voice votes Trump's choices of conservative billionaire investor Wilbur Ross to run the Commerce Department and Elaine Chao to lead the Transportation Department.
And Ben Carson, nominated to lead the Department of Housing and Urban Development, won unanimous approval from the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee.
Yet congressional Republicans criticized Democrats for not moving quickly enough on all of the president's selections.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, forced a one-week delay -- until next Tuesday -- of the committee's vote on Trump's attorney general nominee, Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala.
Feinstein said senators "owe it" to the more than 1 million women who marched in Washington and other locations on Saturday to be careful in considering Sessions' nomination and his willingness to protect equal rights. She also said the committee received 188 pages of new material that needs to be reviewed. Committee rules allow any member of the panel to delay a vote.
The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee also postponed its meeting to vote on the nominations of Ryan Zinke and Rick Perry to head the departments of Interior and Energy.
No reason was given for the delay, although the Senate has a shortened work week. Both caucuses are set to decamp to off-site, closed meetings for most of the week to plot out legislative priorities for the year. Congressional Republicans are set to travel today to Philadelphia, where they'll meet with Trump and British Prime Minister Theresa May, while Democrats will head to a retreat center in West Virginia.
Comey: Staying
In further filling out Trump's administration, FBI Director James Comey has told people he has been asked to stay in his post, people familiar with the matter say.
FBI agents are pursuing multiple lines of inquiry that intersect with the Trump administration; Comey himself is under a Department of Justice Inspector General investigation.
Comey told FBI senior leaders of the decision on a recent teleconference call, though the bureau and the White House declined to confirm it Tuesday.
Comey is less than four years into a 10-year term, and it is extremely rare for a president to remove an FBI director.
Hillary Clinton and many Democrats blame Comey for her defeat.
In July, Comey held a news conference to announce that the bureau was recommending to the Justice Department that Clinton or her aides not be charged in connection with the mishandling of classified information on her personal email server.
Then, 11 days before the election, Comey sent a letter to Congress saying new emails that appeared related to the investigation had surfaced, which the bureau needed to analyze. Two days before the election, Comey sent another letter to Congress, saying that the emails had not changed the FBI's original recommendation to not charge Clinton.
Information for this article was contributed by Alan Fram, Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, Richard Lardner, Joan Lowy, Stephen Ohlemacher and Jennifer Kerr of The Associated Press; by Amy Goldstein, Juliet Eilperin, Ed O'Keefe, Matt Zapotosky, Ellen Nakashima and Sari Horwitz of The Washington Post.
A Section on 01/25/2017