What Tom Price Didn't Do Is the Emerging Attack Against Him

Democrats have taken stock of Dr. Tom Price's financial dealings before the Senate votes on his nomination to be secretary of Health and Human Services. The two most recent lines of attack, reported in separate media stories last week, concern health care investments Price said were made at the direction of his broker and critics say he should have prevented. But "could have" has become the central issue.

According to a financial disclosure filing, Price bought shares of seven companies in the health care sector on March 17, 2016: the pharmaceutical firms Amgen, Biogen, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly, McKesson, and Pfizer, and the medical device manufacturer Zimmer Biomet. These transactions, worth between $1,001 and $15,000 each, drew scrutiny for their alleged connection to the Georgia physician and representative's legislative activity. Specifically, Price was against two proposed rules from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services that would have harmed the first six businesses and Biomet, respectively. Price denounced the proposal affecting the pharma group on March 10, and he cosponsored legislation to block it on April 29. He introduced a bill to delay the other CMS action, which pertained to Biomet's industry, on March 24.

Price and his team have defended him from wrongdoing with multiple bits of background information. For example, he said during a confirmation hearing last week that he has opposed "having the federal government dictate what drugs are available to patients"—his takeaway from the pharma-related regulation—for "years and years." Additionally, Price wrote of his disapproval to the medical device rule in September 2015, many months before taking his modest stake, $2,700, in Biomet.

But his most widely applicable explanation is that a financial manager has directed all but one of his investments in question. A memo from a Price spokesperson provided to THE WEEKLY STANDARD states that nearly all his stocks are held in three broker-directed accounts, including one with Morgan Stanley. Per the memo, that account was rebalanced across all sectors in the first quarter of 2016, explaining the numerous trades Price reported as being executed on March 17. Therefore, he's said he didn't have any knowledge of the purchases of pharmaceutical and Biomet shares.

Democrats have called the reasoning insufficient. Connecticut senator Chris Murphy, on the Senate panel conducting Price's confirmation hearing last week, asked Price why he wouldn't instruct his financial advisor to "stay clear of any companies that are directly affected by [his] legislative work."