have in this administration utilized federal power rather extensively and that s one of the things that we are in litigation about. so it s a little bit inconsistent. he has relied upon the states to get the job done. i m just saying give us a greater deal of flexibility in terms of how to manage, and don t use the federal authority to take that away from us. harris: he is not just the deputy secretary of the hhs under president trump, he also was his covid testing czar. dr. brett giroir in focus today knows testing. first, white house correspondent jacqui heinrich live on the north line. jacqui? hey, harris. dr. fauci floating the possibility of that policy change. top public health officials. dr. rochelle walensky last week defended not testing after an
okay. welcome back. this week president trump announced his nominee for replace former health and human services secretary tom price. alex azar was the deputy secretary of hhs under president george w. bush, and more recently, he served as president of lilly usa, the largest division of eli lilly. certainly he has the resume to do the job, but for a guy with such strong ties to the prescription drug industry, should he be the point man to the president will call upon to lower drug prices? i happen to think that the pharmaceutical industry is one of the least transparent, most complex, and most expensive part of our very expensive health care system. when you look at all those single payer systems around the
long-term. and then you have this nomination of alex azar to head the department of health and human services. it s the most peculiar nomination i can think of. in large part because he s a drug company executive, and he s going to stand against any attempt to roll back drug costs. but he worked at hhs under george w. bush. they re going in the of direction. let me get you real quick, doctor, with on this. the individual mandate is the most unpopular part of obamacare. when it comes to, they promised this, republicans have, for seven years, to repeal and replace, is this the least bad of the bad options, to get something done, though? well, if you re a republican, you re facing the following situation. if we don t pass something, anything, on taxes or health care, going into the 2018 election, it s going to be a big problem. what have we done when we ve controlled all three chambers all three branches of the government? and i think that s their big
i think once our plan is fully implemented, americans will have access to affordable health care that don t have it today. so, you can look at numbers, but there are millions of americans that have a health insurance card, but don t have the ability to use it for their family. and i ve got examples all throughout my district just like so many of my colleagues. so, the card is not what s important. it s can you actually use it. if i give you the keys to a car, you have a car, but if there s no engine in the car it can t take you anywhere. what do you say to conservatives who are critical of your plan who say that the refundable tax credit is a new entitlement program that s not even means tested and they call it republican welfare? actually refundable tax credits have been a part of conservative orthodoxy for years. you look at rand paul s bill. he s got refundable tax credits. so many other bills that are out there have had this. dr. tom price who is secretary of hhs under presid
tom daschle, going to be hhs under president obama when it came out that he had got a car that he hadn t claimed on the tax thing, he withdrew. normally people withdrew. but these people don t. that s why the hearings take so long, we have to deal with these. you have to vet them ahead of time. the office of government ethics said you didn t vet a lot of these people. that s why the hearings take so long. and why they re delayed. as i recall under president obama s administration there were those who didn t pay taxes made to it cabinet positions. it s washington, it happens across the board. congressman, larry, good to see you. nice to be with you. thank you. vice president trump that s president trump, now we re talking about vice president pence, travelling to germany where he is expected to smooth things over with u.s. allies. they re a little bit rattled. don bolton will be here to talk about that. and you may not like it but i m going to ask him about the rumors he s on