HHS Secretary Tom Price Resigns
“I regret that the recent events have created a distraction”
Friday, Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price tendered his resignation.
Recent revelations that Price had been traveling the country via chartered plane and the resultant media stink led to Price’s resignation.
Thank you @POTUS for the opportunity to serve the American people alongside the dedicated folks of @HHSGov. It's been an honor & privilege. pic.twitter.com/nUBNsEDsPv
— Tom Price, M.D. (@SecPriceMD) September 29, 2017
Price promised to pay back the cost of chartered flights and travel commercially moving forward, but the damage was done.
From CNN:
Tom Price, the embattled health and human services secretary, resigned Friday in the midst of a scandal over his use of private planes, a storm that enraged President Donald Trump and undercut his promise to bring accountability to Washington.
Price’s departure came as he’s being investigated by the department’s inspector general for using private jets for multiple government business trips, even to fly distances often as short as from Washington to Philadelphia. The cost for the trips ran into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The scandal infuriated Trump, who viewed the controversy as a needless distraction from his agenda. Over the course of the week, Trump fumed to aides about Price’s flights, which he deemed “stupid,” according to multiple sources. Instead of moving past the storm, Price’s offer to reimburse the government for only a fraction of the flights’ costs enraged Trump further.
Speaking less than an hour before the resignation was announced, Trump bemoaned the optics of the matter, which he said obscured what otherwise had been a cost-saving tenure.
“I was disappointed because I didn’t like it, cosmetically or otherwise. I was disappointed,” Trump said.
A disappointing and unforced error from an otherwise stellar public servant.
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Comments
The media takes another Republican scalp.
He was supposed to champion repeal of Obamacare. He was too Swampy. Buh bye.
This is too bad. Dr Price seemed like a good manager with sound ideas and the drive to implement them. The way he used Private Aircraft when they could not be justified is clearly tone deaf. A first year Poly Sci student could see that this will not stand even the most cursory scrutiny. I’m sure he could get a K street job and resume flying in corporate jets before too long.
He clearly was not on board the Trump agenda and was MIA when he was expected to help push the anti Obamacare legislation through.
Ended up all hat and no cattle.
Agreed – he was supposed to be the House specialist on repealing Obamacare, he was supposed to be the liaison between the White House and Congress that would help craft a working repeal bill.
Now that the repeal bills have collapsed, and Price proved to be useless in the effort, there is no reason to keep him around. The charter flights are just the icing on the cake, a handy excuse to get rid of someone whose services were no longer deemed useful.
Guess he shouldn’t have given up that safe House seat – still, he’ll get a million dollar contract as a “consultant” within a few hours, so I imagine he’s cryin’ all the way to the bank.
” I’m sure he could get a K street job and resume flying in corporate jets before too long.”
****
Trump rules….5 year wait for US lobby job and no foreign lobbying, ever.
I would imagine that Price did not book his own travel.
Eh, mixed feelings here.
1- I hate that the media got a scalp
2- annoyed that Price did stupid stuff, I don’t like this privileged swampy behavior
3- more annoyed that no one cares or remembers that Holder, Mueller and others racked up millions of personal luxury jet travel on specially outfitted jets.
Don’t ever forget the left NEVER lives by its own rules.
4- given that Price seemingly did zero to help support repeal Obamacare despite being highly touted, I am not sure I care. It sounded like he was trying to cut costs but I don’t know. Didn’t hear any great things about him.
Let’s hope the next one does better
You nailed it. I thought Price had given serious thought to replacing O-Care and yet he proposed nothing. He seemed totally out of the picture. I have no clue what, if anything, he was doing, other than wasting taxpayer dollars. And to think I thought he was a good appointment – possibly the Peter Principle was at work.
On the other hand, it bothers me a lot that Republicans let a completely different set of standards apply to them, when those standards are never applied to Democrats. Going along with it simply means it will not only continue, but will get worse.
I wonder how effective Price was at HHS to begin with. He was too swampy anyway and I am not so sure how much he moved the ball for the president.
All I can say is what the heck was wrong with him making such bad decisions. This was not a forced error. It was just plain stupid.
Add in the healthcare mess. Bye bye Price!
“All I can say is what the heck was wrong with him making such bad decisions.”
Can we say “Typical Congressman”???
sad thing is, he’s still far smarter than most. But the name of their game is always take everything you can grab, and grab for everything you can see.
I cannot believe that he did this. But kudos to Trump for calling him on it. Dang, that place isn’t a swamp – it’s a sewer.
Hire Wilbur Ross’ ex-wife, Betsy McCaughey, for HHS Sec’y. Although they might not want to sit next to each other in Cabinet meetings.