It turns out that Rep. Tom Price, HHS nominee, doesn’t like TPM much.
In today’s hearing, Sen. Bill Nelson confronted Price with a 2012 story by TPM and another by Politico. The TPM piece was about Price’s opposition to a ban on discriminating against people with preexisting conditions. The article was written by former TPMer Sahil Kapur, now of Bloomberg News. Pressed on the article, Price quipped, “Oh, well, now there’s a reliable source,” before denying the quote. As it happens, Politico had the same quote. TPM’s story included a further discussion from an unnamed Price aide on why Price opposed the ban.
I’m not surprised that TPM has rubbed Price the wrong way. Price is an arch-supporter of phasing out Medicare, in addition to being an extreme critic of Obamacare and virtually any effort to make quality health care broadly available and affordable to all citizens. Indeed, in November he was pushing for a Medicare phaseout bill to be enacted in 2017! Many Republicans have expressed unease about phasing out Medicare the same year they’re trying to phase out Obamacare.
Price supports phasing out Medicare and replacing it with vouchers that seniors can use to purchase private insurance, which is what Paul Ryan supports. He and Ryan call this “premium support.” For the moment, Medicare phaseout seems to be on the backburner for this year. But it could come back at any moment. More recently President Trump and Price are focused on dismantling Medicaid.
Social Insurance programs like Social Security and Medicare have always been an especial focus of TPM. We make our best efforts to cleave through the obfuscating verbiage that politicians use to obscure the consequences cutting, privatizing or phasing out these programs have for millions of Americans. I’m sorry we’ve made Rep. Price sad. But few subjects are more near and dear to our editorial hearts than clarifying reporting on these critical programs.
