[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 20 (Monday, February 6, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S969-S974]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        NOMINATION OF TOM PRICE

  Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, as the Senate begins to consider the Price 
nomination, I wanted to see if I could put a little perspective on the 
upcoming debate.
  Focusing on bipartisanship has always been important to me. I know 
many of my colleagues on the Senate Finance Committee, on the 
Democratic side, share that view, and in 2009, the nominations of 
Democrats Tom Daschle, Tim Geithner, and Ron Kirk were all handled in a 
bipartisan way.
  Issues came up in the vetting process in each of these cases, and 
both sides of the committee took the investigation seriously. 
Unfortunately, that has not been the case in 2017.
  While Congressman Price served on the powerful Ways and Means 
Committee, he traded in health care stocks, pushed policies that helped 
his portfolio, and got special access to a promising stock deal.
  I asked the congressman directly in his Finance Committee hearing 
whether he got a special deal. He said that he did not.
  I don't think you could be much clearer than the following passage 
from a recent report by a Pulitzer prize-winning reporter at the Wall 
Street Journal. He wrote: ``Rep. Tom Price got a privileged offer to 
buy a biomedical stock at a discount, the company's officials said, 
contrary to his congressional testimony this month.''
  I want to repeat that because I think it goes right to the heart of 
why Finance Committee Democrats feel that the effort to do the vetting 
necessary with respect to Congressman Price is not completed.
  A Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter at the Wall Street Journal--I will 
just read it again--wrote: ``Rep. Tom Price got a privileged offer to 
buy a biomedical stock at a discount, the company's officials said, 
contrary to his congressional testimony this month.''
  So, as I indicated, my Democratic colleagues and I on the committee 
said it was important to take more time to look into this issue. But 
the majority, when we said we needed to take more time to look at it, 
decided to look the other way. That is the first reason for concern on 
my side.
  The second is how Congressman Price would manage Health and Human 
Services, a Department that is really all about people: services for 
seniors, services for the poor, for the disabled, for children, and for 
families. These are the powerful threads of our safety net. If the 
safety net is not there for those who have nowhere else to turn, those 
poor will suffer greatly.
  Now, the debate on Congressman Price's nomination, in my view, is a 
referendum on the future of health care in America. In short, it is a 
debate about whether it makes sense for our country to go back to the 
dark days when health care worked only for the healthy and the wealthy.
  Based on the public record, Medicare is a program Congressman Price 
doesn't believe in, and it guarantees services he doesn't believe 
seniors should have.

[[Page S970]]

  On the Affordable Care Act, he is the architect of repeal and run. He 
wrote the bill himself. He proposed weakening protections for Americans 
with preexisting conditions. He would slash Medicaid, shredding the 
health care safety net for the least fortunate in our country. He would 
take away health care choices for women across the country.
  Look for the common thread, Mr. President and colleagues, among the 
Price proposals. They take away coverage for our people and make health 
care more expensive for individuals or both. That is where Congressman 
Price stands when it comes to American health care.
  Every Senator who casts a vote for Congressman Price has to stand by 
that agenda. Beyond what this means for the future of American health 
care, there is the lingering specter of serious legal and ethical 
issues.
  Tonight and in the hours ahead, this debate is going to tackle each 
of those issues and more. As it gets underway, I am going to begin with 
Medicare.
  In my view, Medicare has been a historic achievement in the way 
policy is made in our country. In any debate like this one, I recall my 
days when I was the codirector of the Oregon Gray Panthers, when I 
worked with seniors who couldn't imagine life without Medicare. But I 
will tell you, they told me stories about what it was like for their 
grandparents when there wasn't Medicare. There were poor farms--
literally, poor farms--where older people who had served our country in 
the Armed Forces very often spent their last days in what amounted to 
squalor at these poor farms. Then Medicare came along. For millions of 
older people, it was a godsend.
  So I want to start my discussion with respect to Medicare with a 
comment that Congressman Price made about Medicare in 2009. It is a 
quote that speaks volumes about the Price perspective on the Medicare 
program that is so treasured by millions of older people.
  Congressman Price wrote in 2009: ``Nothing has had a greater negative 
effect on the delivery of health care than the federal government's 
intrusion into medicine through Medicare.''
  I would just say to my friend, the Presiding Officer of the Senate 
knows how seniors in Oregon see this. Seniors in Oregon consider 
Medicare to be a Godsend, not an intrusion into medicine, as you see 
from the Price perspective.
  Here is the bottom line, colleagues, as we begin here today: Medicare 
is a promise. Medicare is built on a promise of guaranteed benefits--
guaranteed benefits that will be there for you. It is not a voucher. It 
is not a slip of paper. It is guaranteed benefits that you can count 
on, and it is a promise that Congressman Price has indicated--and it is 
a matter of public record--it is a promise that Congressman Price is 
more than willing to break.
  It is a promise that when you turn 65, you will be guaranteed health 
care benefits regardless of your economic station in life or the status 
of your health. And the reason Medicare was built with this special 
guarantee is straightforward: No American knows how healthy they will 
be when they reach age 65. Perhaps you are a marathoner at age 50 and 
you develop arthritis or Alzheimer's or cancer a decade and a half 
later. Furthermore, no one knows what the economy is going to look like 
years ahead or decades ahead into the future. For the less fortunate, 
high inflation or a stock market crash could all but wipe out what they 
set aside over a lifetime of work. Seniors could find their benefits 
exposed to new danger every time there is a financial downturn.
  During the recent campaign, the American people heard a standard 
Trump pledge: No cuts to Medicare. But when you look at the Price 
record and the promise of President Trump, there is a big gap between 
the two. When you look at Congressman Price's plan, it is clear that 
the Trump pledge was on the ropes the minute he was nominated. In fact, 
Congressman Price said that he wants to voucherize Medicare within the 
first 6 to 8 months of the administration. Let me repeat that again.
  Mr. President, some of these statements that the Congressman has made 
are so far-fetched that once in a while I am going to have to repeat 
them so that people really get a sense of why we are so concerned.
  Congressman Price said he wants to voucherize Medicare within the 
first 6 to 8 months of the administration. So what that would mean is 
that right out of the chute, the Medicare promise, the promise of 
guaranteed benefits--Congressman Price wants to break the promise. In 
his budget, the Congressman called for privatizing Medicare and cutting 
it by nearly $500 billion.
  He also championed legislation to allow a practice called balanced 
billing in Medicare. That means seniors could be forced to cover extra 
charges above what the program pays for the services they receive in 
the doctor's office. Older Americans on fixed incomes would be forced 
to pay more for their care.
  Colleagues, I believe the Congress has no greater duty than to uphold 
the promise of Medicare. In my view, there is no need to mince words: 
Privatizing Medicare as Congressman Price has thought to do means an 
end--an end to the program-guaranteed health benefit. It would break 
the Medicare promise, the promise of guaranteed benefits and services, 
and end Medicare as our country knows it.
  Now let me turn to the Affordable Care Act. When it comes to the 
Affordable Care Act, for years now, there has been a steady drumbeat 
coming from my colleagues on the other side: Repeal and replace. Repeal 
and replace. I think it has gotten to the point where children sing it 
almost as a jingle. Repeal and replace. It has been said so many times. 
A government shutdown all built around that slogan--repeal and replace.
  At one point, the President-elect said repeal and replace would 
happen, in his words, ``simultaneously.'' Shortly before inauguration, 
he said they would come within the same hour, and he said Congressman 
Price was writing the replacement plan and it was nearly ready to be 
unveiled.
  But the public heard a different story during Congressman Price's 
Finance Committee hearing. At that hearing, our colleague Senator Brown 
of Ohio asked: The President said he is working with you on a 
replacement plan for the Affordable Care Act, which is nearly finished, 
and it will be revealed after your confirmation; is that true?
  That was the question posed by Senator Brown to Congressman Price.
  The Congressman said: It is true that he said that, yeah--that he 
said that, yeah. A moment later he added, ``I have had conversations 
with the President about health care, yes.''
  So if anybody is waiting for the curtain to rise on the Price 
replacement plan, it sounds like you are going to have to wait a while 
longer. In fact, the President said this weekend, just this weekend, 
Americans might have to wait until next year to see the replacement, 
but the uncertainty about what comes next sure hasn't slowed down the 
charge of many toward repeal. In fact, the President issued a day one 
Executive order instructing the executive branch to roll back the 
Affordable Care Act in any way possible.
  So I thought given these developments, the fact that Congressman 
Price is the architect of a repeal-and-run bill; that the President 
immediately on day one tried to set in motion a strategy to gut some of 
the key protections in the Affordable Care Act, I thought I ought to 
follow this up with Congressman Price during his nomination hearing in 
the Finance Committee. So I asked Congressman Price during his finance 
nomination hearing whether the Congressman would state that nobody 
would be worse off under the President's Executive order--not real 
complicated.
  There had been all this talk through the campaign about how now 
President Trump could do a better job, less money. That was the 
constant refrain. I decided, given these ominous developments that I 
just described since the beginning of this year, I thought I would just 
ask Congressman Price whether anybody would be worse off under the 
Executive order. He ducked the question.
  I remember asking him about whether people would be worse off with 
respect to coverage, and I remembered he said something about how 
people would have access to health care. Well, I will tell you, hearing 
the word ``access'' rather than ``coverage'' means that

[[Page S971]]

somebody is walking back a commitment to people really getting care. 
Everybody pretty much can have access. Sure, if I had the money, I 
could get it. It is about coverage. So we asked Congressman Price 
whether people would be worse off and he ducked the question.
  So then I asked if he would commit that no one would lose coverage, 
and he ducked once more.
  Then I asked if he would commit to holding off on implementing the 
Executive order until a replacement plan was enacted. He ducked.
  So the Congressman was given an opportunity to, in effect, say that 
he would honor what the American people were told by President Trump in 
the campaign; that the two would be hand in hand, the replacement and 
repeal would go hand in hand, but he had the chance to say that at the 
nomination hearing and he ducked and ducked and he ducked some more.
  Americans are still being told that the Affordable Care Act is the 
problem and it has to be repealed. It looks to me that what Republicans 
have on offer now isn't repeal and replace at all. It is what I have 
been calling it since last year, repeal and run, and the architect of 
repeal and run is Congressman Price. In fact, he wrote the bill. He 
wrote the bill that would have gutted the ACA the last time around.
  Under the Price plan, 18 million Americans would lose their health 
insurance in less than 2 years. By 2026, it would be 32 million who 
would lose coverage. Today 26 million Americans are uninsured. In a 
decade it would be 59 million. Working Americans would make up four out 
of every five people who lose their coverage. These are folks 
struggling to climb the economic ladder. No-cost contraceptive coverage 
for millions of women would be gone. We would have hundreds of 
thousands of women losing access to care almost immediately just by the 
defunding of Planned Parenthood. Hundreds of thousands more would lose 
their choice to see the doctors they trust. Just think about that. 
Legislation that is going to take away from American women the chance 
to see the doctor of their choosing, the doctor they trust. I don't 
know anybody in the last election who thought they were voting to see 
women lose the choice of the doctor they trust.
  Under the Price plan, premiums jumped by hundreds of dollars a year 
as the individual market for health insurance collapses. Health care 
costs skyrocket. It is a gut punt to all, even those who get their 
health insurance at work because what it would do is, in effect, it 
would shrink--it would shrink the health care market in a way that 
there would be many more people who are seriously ill and had great 
expenses, and when you try to pass those on, that would mean people in 
the marketplace and those who had health insurance from their employer 
would see increases.
  Another issue in the Price plan that ought to set off any alarm 
bells, in my view, is what Congressman Price has proposed for those 
with preexisting health care conditions. This is especially important 
in my view. When I proposed my own health plan, eight Democrats, eight 
Republicans, I was especially pleased that Senators on both sides of 
the aisle understood that making sure that insurance companies could 
not knock the stuffing out of people with a preexisting condition any 
longer was central to reform. Because when you allow discrimination 
against those with a preexisting condition, what you are essentially 
saying is health care in America is going to be for the healthy and 
wealthy. If you are healthy, no problem with a preexisting condition. 
If you are wealthy, again, no problem.
  So right at the heart of the Affordable Care Act is a guarantee that 
insurance companies cannot discriminate against Americans with 
preexisting conditions. Frankly, I was very pleased to see that because 
as I indicated, 16 Senators--8 Democrats and 8 Republicans--on our bill 
said that was right at the heart of what they wanted in health care 
reform. So the ACA--the Affordable Care Act--said, No denying coverage 
to pregnant women, no denying coverage to cancer patients, no denying 
coverage to kids with autism. Under the Affordable Care Act, that is 
the law of the land. It protects every single American. No American 
under the Affordable Care Act should have to feel, when they go to bed 
at night, that they are going to get hammered as in the old days 
because they have a preexisting condition.

  Now, Congressman Price, once again turning to the public record--it 
is all in the public record here. Congressman Price doesn't believe the 
American people should have the protection of that kind of real ban 
against discrimination for a preexisting condition. In fact, he was 
quoted in 2012 saying that it was, in his words, ``a terrible idea.'' 
So he, like the law, changed, and his way to change a law that 
guarantees universal protection is to get rid of the guarantee that you 
aren't going to get discriminated against if you have a preexisting 
condition.
  Our colleague, Senator Nelson of Florida, asked Congressman Price 
about the issue of making sure those with preexisting conditions don't 
get discriminated against when the Finance Committee held their 
nomination hearing. Once again, Congressman Price ducked, bobbed, and 
weaved. Senator Nelson asked if the Congressman thought that the 
proposal to continue the ban on discriminating against people with a 
preexisting condition is a terrible idea. Here is what Congressman 
Price said: ``What I have always said about preexisting conditions is 
that nobody, in a system that pays attention to patients, nobody ought 
to be priced out of the market for having a bad diagnosis. Nobody.''
  Now, that probably is a pretty good sound bite. It is a good sound 
bite if you are trying to duck a question, but it is not a real answer 
to what Congressman Price was asked by Senator Nelson. And if you 
examine Congressman Price's own proposal, when it comes to actually 
protecting people with a preexisting condition from discrimination, you 
can see why Congressman Price isn't very interested in giving a 
straight answer.
  I am going to turn now to one of the Congressman's bills. It is 
ironically called ``Empowering Patients First.'' Instead of a ban on 
discrimination against those with preexisting conditions, the Price 
bill opened up loopholes to benefit insurance companies. The Price plan 
hinged on something called continuous coverage, and Americans are going 
to probably hear a fair amount about that in the months ahead.
  The Price plan said that insurance companies had the right to inspect 
your recent past when you applied for coverage to the private market. 
If they found gaps when you went without insurance, they could deny 
coverage for your preexisting condition for up to a year and a half, or 
they could hike your premiums by 50 percent. In short, under the Price 
plan, insurance companies could take your money and skip out on 
covering the health care that you actually need.
  Short summary of the Price health provision there: Worse health care, 
higher costs.
  Now let's think about what this would mean for a cancer patient who 
suffers a job loss: Up to 18 months without coverage for cancer 
treatment they need that could be the difference between life and 
death. Congressman Price's bill didn't allow any special exceptions for 
certain gaps in coverage. No matter why you lost your insurance--maybe 
a layoff, maybe your spouse passed, quitting your job to start a 
business or go back to school--insurance companies with the Price plan 
again would be allowed to discriminate. And Congressman Price's bill 
didn't create any safeguards for particular patients with life-
threatening illnesses. No matter what kind of preexisting condition you 
have, you would be at risk of losing access to care. And going by the 
practices those companies followed before the Affordable Care Act, more 
than 130 million Americans under age 65 may have a preexisting 
condition.
  Now, it is correct that Republicans may not decide to go ahead with 
Congressman Price's bill as the final measure on replacement. But make 
no mistake about it: If confirmed, Congressman Price will be the 
captain of the Trump administration's health team. His proposals 
matter. And his approach is one that is followed by just about every 
other Republican who has put forward a plan of their own.
  Colleagues, I think it would be an enormous mistake for this Senate--
for

[[Page S972]]

our country--to turn back the clock and go back to the days when health 
care was for the healthy and wealthy. I don't think there ought to be a 
debate about the need for real, truly strong protection for our people 
against discrimination for those with a preexisting condition.
  The Affordable Care Act locked it in to black letter law. It set a 
new standard: Nobody in America is going to be denied insurance due to 
a preexisting condition. In my view, it would be unconscionable to look 
to yesteryear, turn back the clock, and undermine those strong 
protections for the millions and millions of Americans who suffer from 
those preexisting health conditions. That, as a matter of public 
record, is what Congressman Price's proposal would do.
  I want to turn now to his ideas with respect to Medicaid. This, in my 
view, is an especially important program, and a part of it that is 
usually missed is the nursing home benefit for seniors. Back when I was 
the director of the Oregon Gray Panthers and I ran the legal aid office 
for the elderly, I saw in particular what Medicaid meant for seniors 
who needed nursing home care.
  Medicaid now covers costs for two-thirds of the seniors in nursing 
homes. And I think we ought to think about who these people are because 
these are people in Colorado, in Oregon, and across the country, who 
worked hard. They always played by the rules. They put their kids 
through school. They were part of their communities. They saved, they 
scrimped, they didn't go on an extra vacation; maybe they were thinking 
about buying a boat, but they didn't do any of that. They didn't do any 
of that because they wanted to save and make sure their spouse could 
have a dignified retirement, that they could put their kids through 
school, and they did everything right. So they saved and they saved and 
they saved.
  But the fact is, it costs a lot to be a senior in America today. So 
perhaps they spent down all those savings, and their kids--the kids 
they love so much--aren't doing that well economically, so it is hard 
for the kids to help out with long-term care.
  Without Medicaid--and particularly the nursing home benefit--seniors, 
65 percent of whom depend on the program for nursing homes, wouldn't be 
able to have a dignified retirement.
  So that nursing home benefit that is paid for by Medicaid is also one 
that Congressman Price has proposed slashing. He does that by cutting 
$2 trillion out of Medicaid over the course of two stages. First, 
Congressman Price repeals the expansion of Medicaid created under the 
Affordable Care Act. This means that more than 11 million Americans 
lose their coverage. And it is a plan that even Republican Governors 
are speaking out against. John Kasich of Ohio--I think he would 
probably tell you he is not anybody's idea of a bleeding heart 
liberal--said recently: ``So if all of a sudden that goes away, what do 
we tell those 700,000 people? We are closed? Can't do that.''
  But that is exactly what Congressman Price's plan is going to end up 
doing. It is going to end up telling those 700,000 Ohioans, along with 
millions of people across the country in Oregon, and across the land--
and that is because he is pushing to take away their coverage and 
hasn't offered any real alternative that would preserve their access to 
care.
  So for all of those seniors--the ones who worked hard and saved and 
did everything right--we all know them; perhaps they are the widower 
down at the end of the block--there is not going to be a way to pay for 
their health care, and they are not going to be able to have a 
dignified retirement, in spite of the fact they did everything all 
their life to plan and save.
  Congressman Price's second Medicaid cut turns the program into a 
block grant and introduces a cap approach. That slashes another 30 
percent of its funding and sets it up to be squeezed even more down the 
road.
  Now, Medicaid goes a lot further in terms of taking on some of the 
biggest health care challenges in America. I cited the nursing home 
benefit because that is one that I dealt with again and again when I 
was director of the Gray Panthers. But the fact is that the program is 
helping communities across the country take on a whole host of health 
care challenges. The opioid epidemic is one example.
  Now, we know that opioid addiction has hit American communities like 
a wrecking ball. More than a million people struggle with substance 
abuse, and they would lose access to care if the Price plan to repeal 
Medicaid expansion goes through. And further cuts to Medicaid would 
make the problem even worse, and it wouldn't just be for adults.
  Tens of thousands of babies are born with a dependency to drugs each 
year. It is largely a product of the opioid crisis. My view is that 
number can only rise under Congressman Price's plan to cut Medicaid, a 
key source of primary care, prenatal care, and substance abuse 
treatment for pregnant women.
  Medicaid is also the biggest source of funding for community and 
home-based care for those vulnerable Americans with serious 
disabilities. It is a huge source of AIDS treatment in America, 
particularly with the Affordable Care Act expansion.
  All in all, 74 million Americans rely on Medicaid, and they are 
certainly not among the most fortunate. Half of them are kids, 
including millions with special needs. The program covers nearly half 
of all births and millions of Americans with disabilities.
  I want to come back again to the faces of these people because I am 
not sure, when people hear the word ``Medicaid,'' what they see. I 
mention that it is so many seniors who, after planning, saving, and 
scrimping, need the program for nursing home care. It covers people who 
toil through hard work, even multiple jobs, bringing home just enough 
to keep them out of poverty. For many, signing up for the Medicaid 
Program brought an end to the years when they had to choose between 
visiting the doctor and putting food on the table. Medicaid is their 
health care safety net. Make no mistake about it; Congressman Price's 
proposals leave that safety net in tatters. There isn't any other 
backstop for those vulnerable Americans. From small, tiny children to 
seniors who depend on it for nursing home care, there is no other 
backstop if their access to health care through Medicaid goes away.
  One of the arguments made by advocates of block grants and caps is 
that States would have flexibility, and they point to a section of the 
Affordable Care Act I wrote to support their case. I believe they are 
talking about what is called section 1332. There is a big difference 
between what I wrote in the Affordable Care Act and what block grants 
would do. We had a number of Senators on both sides of the aisle who 
were interested in this issue. What I wrote is this: With that 
flexibility, the Affordable Care Act lets States do better by their 
people. The Price plan to block grant and cap Medicaid costs lets 
States do worse.
  Slashing Medicaid also hits State budgets extraordinarily hard. That 
is a big reason why Governors across the country have been skeptical--
even Republican Governors, like John Kasich and Rick Snyder of 
Michigan. Today, Medicaid comes with an open-ended kind of feature. 
Federal funding for the program doesn't tick down to zero. Nobody gets 
cut off. If you are working in America and are eligible for Medicaid, 
you don't have to worry about being locked out of the doctor's office 
if the program goes into the red. Block granting and capping the 
program changes that. States get a chunk of money each year. There is a 
big risk that money runs out, especially during times of economic 
downturn. That is when Medicaid is needed most, at times when working 
Americans have the most trouble walking the economic tightrope.
  This is in addition to the undeniable, routine demands on the 
program: an aging baby-boomer population that will be in increasing 
need of nursing home and home-based care, public health emergencies 
like the Zika virus that can come without warning, natural disasters 
like Hurricane Katrina or the Flint water crisis that devastate 
communities, new high-priced drugs that can be cures but come with a 
steep price.
  The reality is if a State's block grant runs out, that raises 
questions that ought to be alarming to all who care about vulnerable 
Americans having access to the care they need.
  What happens if seniors lose their nursing home benefits in the 
middle of the year? Where would they go? Would patients in substance 
abuse treatment

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lose access to care? If a State's Medicaid funding dries up midway 
through the fiscal year, who would pay for a birth? Would the parents 
of a newborn child have to bear the entire cost when they are on a 
modest income, working hard, and a hospital bill could reach tens of 
thousands of dollars?
  When it comes time to pitch this very extreme health care agenda to 
the American people, Congressman Price is very articulate and sticks 
closely to well-rehearsed language. That is because the Price agenda 
would strip tens of millions of Americans of their insurance coverage 
and force people to pay much higher costs for much lesser care. It 
isn't going to go over very well when people really understand what is 
at stake.
  One of the priorities Congressman Price talks about most frequently 
is access--always saying that his vision is Americans are going to have 
access to care. That is one very hollow theory. Access to health care 
doesn't mean a lot if you can't afford the cost. So when Americans hear 
the Price plan that people will have access, rather than coverage, pay 
attention. Pay attention, because if you have coverage today, and he is 
going to promise you access in the future, chances are you are going 
into the hole and you had better figure out how you are going to pay 
for it.
  The Congressman talks about flexibility for patients. But under 
Congressman Price's plans that wipe out consumer protections and 
minimum standards for coverage, it is insurance companies that get the 
most flexibility.
  The Congressman likes to talk about using metrics to measure health 
care. It is very hard to follow what this metrics approach is all 
about. When his proposals are challenged using facts and figures, 
including those that come from our nonpartisan scorekeepers at the 
Congressional Budget Office, he disagrees or he dodges. During his 
hearing, he just disagreed with the Congressional Budget Office when I 
asked him about some of his funding cuts that would deprive women of 
access to preventive care. He objects to even the simplest of 
measures--how much funding his proposals cut from our health care 
programs--as calculated by the nonpartisan experts. In my view, you 
can't run from the metrics when they don't tell you what you want to 
hear.
  Finally, the Congressman and many others say patients should be at 
the center of care. Now, I want it understood, I don't see how anybody 
could dispute that idea. Of course patients should be at the center of 
care. But when I look at the Price proposals, I don't see the patient 
at the center of health care. I see money and I see special interests 
at the center of health care.
  The Price plan tells vulnerable Americans that their health care will 
only go as far as their bank accounts are going to take them. The well-
to-do may be able to manage just fine under the Price proposals and the 
costs they push onto patients, but I am absolutely certain that 
millions of working Americans won't be able to do it.

  I am going to wrap up talking about several glaring ethical issues 
with respect to Congressman Price. I will begin with the Congressman's 
significant investments in an Australian biomedical company. A lot of 
information about those investments has come into view over the course 
of months of investigation and reporting. What the facts show is that 
in 2016, the Congressman was part of an exclusive deal to buy stock at 
a discounted price--a deal called a ``private placement.'' On multiple 
occasions he was given opportunities to come clean and explain his 
participation in the special stock sale. He never has. Now, the 
majority on the Finance Committee has cut off the vetting process 
before getting all the facts or having the Congressman correct the 
record. So I am going to take a moment tonight to lay out the facts.
  It is well known that Congressman Price learned about the company 
from a House colleague, Congressman Chris Collins. But Chris Collins 
isn't exactly a casual observer of the Australian business pages. He is 
Innate's--the company's--largest shareholder and a member of its board. 
Many of the company's other major shareholders are people in 
Congressman Collins' orbit, family members and chief of staff and 
others that he is close to. After learning about the company from his 
colleague, Congressman Price made his first purchase of the company's 
stock in 2015. He bought 61,000 shares.
  Now let's fast forward to August 2016. The Congressman bought another 
400,000 shares of Innate as part of a private stock sale for U.S. 
investors. When the private sale took place, Innate's shares were 
trading on the Australian stock exchange for the equivalent of 31 
American cents, but participants in this private sale got the shares at 
a steep discount. That discount meant that Congressman Price paid tens 
of thousands of dollars less than a typical investor would have paid on 
the open market.
  With respect to that purchase, the record remains unclear. It does 
come down to two issues: how he came to participate in the private 
placement, and whether he got special access that other investors 
didn't have. On those issues, Congressman Price tells one story; 
company officials, Congressman Collins, and public documents tell 
another.
  First I am going to examine how Congressman Price came to participate 
in this private deal. As he tells it, he decided to make that purchase 
based on his own research into the company. But the Wall Street Journal 
and a little common sense say otherwise. I will read from a January 30 
report.

       Mr. Price got in on the discounted sale after Mr. Collins 
     filled him in on the company's drug trial, according to Mr. 
     Collins. . . . Mr. Collins said he told Mr. Price of the 
     additional private placement. He said Mr. Price asked if he 
     could participate in it. ``Could you have someone send me the 
     documents?''

  Mr. Collins recalled Mr. Price asking him.
  It paints a pretty clear picture. Congressman Price got information 
from his colleague, the company's top shareholder, and he got an 
invitation to a special deal. The claim that his conversations with 
Congressman Collins had no effect on Congressman Price's decision to 
invest just does not pass muster.
  So I will turn to the second point--whether or not the deal was 
available to all company shareholders. Congressman Price insists it 
was. Here is the exchange he and I had during his nomination hearing in 
the Finance Committee.
  I said: ``You purchased stock in an Australian company through 
private offerings at discounts not available to the public.''
  Congressman Price responded: ``Well, if I may, those--they were 
available to every single individual that was an investor at the 
time.''
  But that is not what Innate management--including the CEO--told the 
Wall Street Journal. According to the Wall Street Journal's report, 
Congressman Price was one of six special American investors in a 
category called ``friends and family.'' I will read a passage from the 
story.

       The cabinet nominee [Mr. Price] was one of fewer than 20 
     U.S. investors who were invited last year to buy discounted 
     shares of the company--an opportunity that, for Mr. Price, 
     arose from an invitation from a company director and a fellow 
     congressman.
       At Mr. Collins's invitation, Mr. Price in June ordered 
     shares discounted in the private placement at 18 cents 
     apiece, and then more in July at 26 cents a share, Mr. 
     Collins said in an interview. Those orders went through in 
     August, after board approval. Mr. Price invested between 
     $50,000 and $100,000, according to his disclosure form . . .
       Mr. Wilkinson [the company's CEO] said investors who had 
     bought in a previous private placement were called to make 
     friends and family aware of the opportunity. . . . We are 
     always looking to increase our shareholder base. But those 
     new parties have to meet the definition of sophisticated 
     financial investor.
       Only six U.S. investors, including Mr. Price, fell into the 
     friends-and-family category, Mr. Collins [his friend in 
     Congress] said. About 10 more U.S. investors were offered 
     discounted shares by the company because they had previously 
     been invited to partake in private placement offerings.

  Furthermore, Congressman Collins and Mr. Wilkinson added more detail.

       The discounted stock offer in Innate Immuno, as the company 
     is known, was made to all shareholders in Australia and New 
     Zealand--but not in the U.S., according to Mr. Collins and 
     confirmed in a separate interview with Innate Immuno CEO 
     Simon Wilkinson.

  Bottom line, Congressman Price got in as a special guest, a friends 
and family guest of Congressman Collins. What he told the committee--
that the

[[Page S974]]

deal was open to shareholders--was dead wrong. I am going to repeat 
this quote from the Wall Street Journal. This was part of a report that 
was authored by a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. This is what he 
wrote in the Wall Street Journal: ``Rep. Tom Price got a privileged 
offer to buy a biomedical stock at a discount, the company's officials 
said, contrary to his congressional testimony this month.''
  The stock deals I outlined are of very great significance. They 
aren't the only ethical issue at hand. Congressman Price introduced 
legislation that would lower the tax bills of three major 
pharmaceutical companies in which he owns significant amounts of stock. 
He invested $15,000 in a medical equipment company and then introduced 
legislation to increase the amount Medicare pays for that type of 
equipment. Parts of his bill went on to become law.
  Then there is his investment in a company called Zimmer Biomet. In 
2015, Medicare was preparing a new pricing model that would change the 
way the program paid for hip and knee replacements. Instead of paying 
for each individual service, Medicare said it would try to make its 
payments more efficient by bundling the costs together in one lump sum. 
The new system, however, had the potential to affect the revenues of 
Zimmer Biomet.
  On March 17, 2016, a few weeks before the government's model--that 
is, the CMS model was set to go into effect--Congressman Price bought 
thousands of dollars' worth of Zimmer Biomet stock through his 
brokerage account. On March 23, 2016, less than a week later, he 
introduced H.R. 4848, the HIP Act, which would have delayed the 
implementation of CMS regulations for Medicare coverage of joint 
replacements. He was the lead Republican sponsor of the bill.
  Bottom line, Congressman Price introduced legislation that certainly 
had the potential to add to his personal fortune. Congressman Price has 
argued that he didn't purchase this stock and others; his broker was 
making the deal. But at the very least, he would have known about the 
deals within days when he filed his periodic transaction reports with 
the House.
  On August 15, 2016, not only did Congressman Price file a report that 
he had purchased Zimmer Biomet along with dozens of other stocks, he 
initialed the entry for Zimmer Biomet in order to correct a mistake on 
the document.
  Wrapping up, I want to go back to the fact that when Congressman 
Price came before the Finance Committee, he didn't give us the whole 
story. In effect, I think the Finance Committee regrettably has an 
ethical double standard now. Look at the nominations of Tom Daschle, 
Tim Geithner, and Ron Kirk at the outset of the Obama administration. 
That vetting was vigorous. It was bipartisan. We looked over every 
stone and peered around every corner. Now, when a glaring issue comes 
up that undeniably deserves investigation, the party in power is 
shutting down the vetting process and moving toward confirmation. I 
think this is sending a dangerous message to nominees in the future.
  I will close by way of saying this is a nominee with an extreme 
agenda. His proposals strip tens of millions of Americans of their 
health care coverage. His proposals would put Americans with 
preexisting conditions in danger of losing coverage through the care 
they need. It would unravel the Medicare promise, the guarantee of 
secured benefits of vital importance to millions of American seniors.
  When it comes to ethics, as I have described, Congressman Price falls 
well short of the standard the American people expect nominees to meet. 
I will not support his nomination. I urge my colleagues to join me in 
opposition.
  I yield the floor.

                          ____________________