Joe.My.God. LGBT News
Salon reports:
President-elect Donald Trump’s choice for secretary of Health and Human Services, Rep. Tom Price of Georgia, introduced legislation last year that would help a biotech company only days after he purchased stock in it.
Less than a week after buying between $1,001 and $15,000 of shares in Zimmer Biomet, Price introduced a bill known as the HIP Act. Its objective was to delay until 2018 a Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services regulation that would have impacted payments for the knee and hip implants in which the corporation specializes, CNN reported on Monday. Zimmer Biomet’s political action committee subsequently made a donation to Price’s reelection campaign.
This isn’t the first time that Price has been criticized for pushing legislation that could financially benefit medical companies in which he had invested stock. Last month, it was reported that over the last four years Price had traded roughly $300,000 in shares in health companies that would directly benefit from legislation he was pursuing.
The Trump team is reacting in typical fashion:
“Any effort to connect the introduction of bipartisan legislation by Dr Price to any campaign contribution is demonstrably false,” said transition spokesman Phil Blando. “The only pattern we see emerging is that Senate Democrats and their liberal media allies cannot abide by the notion that Dr. Tom Price is uniquely qualified to lead HHS and will stop at nothing to smear his reputation,” he said.
Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the leader of the Democratic minority in the Senate, called on the Office of Congressional Ethics to investigate whether Price had violated the 2012 Stock Act, a law designed to combat insider trading. “The President-elect claims he wants to drain the swamp, but Congressman Price has spent his career filling it up,” Schumer said in a statement.