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# Price HHS Confirmation Hearing 1/24 Amid New Concerns
- URL: https://www.fdaweb.com/price-hhs-confirmation-hearing-1-24-amid-new-concerns/
- Published: 2017-01-23T12:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-14T22:02:14.000Z
- Author: David McFarland
- Tags: FDA Policy/General, #legacy-id-D5137794

A Senate Finance Committee Hearing 1/24 will consider the nomination of president Trump’s pick to lead HHS, House Budget Committee chair **Tom** **Price** (R-GA) ([see earlier story](https://www.fdaweb.com/trump-taps-rep-price-as-hhs-nominee/)). Committee members are expected to grill Price on ethics concerns. Earlier this month, he [agreed to divest](https://www.fdaweb.com/trumps-hhs-pick-will-divest-pharma-stock-ownership/) stock ownership in over 40 companies if his appointment is confirmed by the Senate.

Price’s hearing comes on the heels of new ethics concerns uncovered in a Freedom of Information request involving letters from Price to CMS that show he repeatedly stepped up in favor of drug firms, device manufacturers and higher physician payments, according to a *Kaiser Health News* [report](http://khn.org/news/trumps-hhs-pick-favored-drugmakers-device-makers-and-doctors/?utm%5Fcampaign=KHN%3A+Daily+Health+Policy+Report&utm%5Fsource=hs%5Femail&utm%5Fmedium=email&utm%5Fcontent=41126733&%5Fhsenc=p2ANqtz-%5FPmZRSJMeMHoCZsAGYy3yDmRVUTbWfn8GzUKrhX1KohY4rF%5F1aslPY).

“He’s clearly shown in this case and in other ways allegiance to the corporate interest, but not to the patient interest,” National Center for Health Research president **Diana Zuckerman** is quoted in the report as saying. “Price aligned with pharmaceutical firms in one letter, criticizing a policy meant to steer doctors away from the costliest drugs,” the report says. Another [letter](https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3382643-Tom-Price-Sunshine-Law.html?ref=fdaweb.com) in 2013 would have helped major pharmaceutical firms by reducing the reports they must file on educational materials they hand out to doctors. Price and 22 other lawmakers wanted to relieve the companies from reporting what they spend giving doctors journal article reprints or textbook chapters. At the time, Medicare declined to make a change.

  
“Any suggestion that his motivations for public service have been anything other than seeking to improve the lives of the American people is simply wrong,” a Trump spokesman told *Kaiser Health News*.