Trump Picks Anti-Gay Georgia Congressman as Secretary of Health and Human Services

Nomination Poses Significant Threat to Women and LGBT People

Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Price of Georgia is Donald Trump’s nominee to become Secretary of Health and Human Services. The six-term congressman is the chairman of the powerful House Budget Committee and a staunch opponent of Obamacare. As the head of HHS he is expected to dismantle the Affordable Care Act, and Medicare, with the help and support of Speaker Paul Ryan, who shares those goals. At minimum, 20 million people are at risk of losing their health insurance, millions more at risk of losing Medicare.

Price will oversee nearly 80,000 employees and be responsible for policy across a large number of important institutions, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), National Institutes of Health (NIH), and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

The Georgia Republican is an anti-gay extremist who holds views dangerous to the LGBT community and to women. 

Rep. Price has supported the false claim that “promoting” the “homosexual agenda” has a “tremendous medical health impact and economic impact.” He also has said that LGBT equality is “a huge cost-driver to state pensions and other things, many of these areas would significantly alter state balance sheets.”

When the Supreme Court handed down the Obergefell ruling, Price issued a statement calling it “not only a sad day for marriage, but a further judicial destruction of our entire system of checks and balances.”

Last year Price joined other Georgia Congressmen in signing a letter of support for fired Atlanta fire chief Kelvin Cochran, who was terminated after not obtaining permission to use his official capacity to promote a book he wrote that disparages LGBT people under the cloak of religion. The letter falsely described both Cochran’s actions and the reason for his termination. 

Price, as On The Issues details, voted against reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act and against prohibiting job discrimination based on sexual orientation. He voted to constitutionally define marriage as one-man-one-woman and to amend the Constitution to define traditional marriage. He’s earned a 0% rating from the Human Rights Campaign and a 17% rating from the NAACP.

Rep. Price, 62, opposes a woman’s right to choose, he opposes stem cell research, and supports banning all federal funding of Planned Parenthood. He also supports granting embryos personhood status and thus equal protection under 14th Amendment.

Price, an orthopedic physician, is a former chair of the House Republican Study Committee, which at the time was the most conservative caucus in Congress.

Here’s Rep. Price in 2010 sharing his vision at the conservative conference CPAC:

 

Image by Gage Skidmore via Flickr and a CC license