Former Eli Lilly Executive Is Trump’s Choice for Health Secretary
November 14, 2017 by admin
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Critics mocked the selection by a president who promised to drain the Washington “swamp” of lobbyists and has complained about “RIPOFF DRUG PRICES” on Twitter. Representative Peter Welch, Democrat of Vermont, said that “instead of draining the swamp, he has set the fox to guard the henhouse.”
Senate Democrats vowed to scrutinize Mr. Azar’s record in the Bush administration and as a drug company executive.
“I am also interested in how, given Mr. Azar’s professional background, he believes he can fairly execute any significant effort to lower drug prices for patients,” said Senator Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington.
Senator Lamar Alexander, Republican of Tennessee and the chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said Mr. Azar had “the qualifications and experience to get results” and promised to promptly schedule a hearing on his nomination.
In addition to his experience as a pharmaceutical executive, Mr. Azar brings to the job impeccable credentials as a conservative lawyer. A graduate of Yale Law School, he was a clerk for Justice Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court in the early 1990s and spent two years as a young lawyer working for Kenneth W. Starr, the independent counsel who investigated President Bill Clinton.
If he is confirmed by the Senate, Mr. Azar would be returning to a sprawling agency where he served as general counsel and deputy secretary before spending a decade in the pharmaceutical industry. He resigned from Eli Lilly, which makes Cialis, Humulin and Trulicity among other popular and profitable drugs, in January.
Mr. Leavitt dismissed concerns that Mr. Azar’s work at Eli Lilly would interfere with his ability to seek lower drug prices.
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“To solve the problems within the pharmaceutical industry, you have to understand the way the distribution system works,” Mr. Leavitt said. “Alex understands that as well as any person in the country.” If he were to be confirmed, Mr. Leavitt added, “Alex doesn’t work for the drug industry — he works for the president of the United States.”
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Kathleen Sebelius, who succeeded Mr. Leavitt as health and human services secretary under Mr. Obama, said Mr. Azar’s knowledge of how the department worked would be a valuable asset if he was confirmed. But she said she had no doubt Mr. Azar would use that expertise to reverse the health care changes that she helped put in place.
“He may be the only secretary in modern history other than Tom Price to be given the job to take away people’s health care,” Ms. Sebelius said. “Alex is a smart guy. He clearly has watched the last year or so. I assume his agreement to come in means that he’s O.K. with enforcing or trying to promote the president’s agenda.”
Mr. Trump’s choice of Mr. Azar continues a pattern in which the president has put former industry officials in charge of regulating their former colleagues. At the Department of Health and Human Services, it would fall to Mr. Azar to follow through on the president’s threats to confront drug prices, many of which are manufactured by Mr. Azar’s former company.
Eli Lilly, where Mr. Azar worked for almost a decade, is one of three manufacturers of insulin whose prices have skyrocketed in recent years. The price increases by the three drug makers — Lilly, Novo Nordisk and Sanofi — have happened in near lock step and prompted outcries from patient groups. This year, a lawsuit filed by patients accused the companies of fixing prices.
Lilly again raised prices on two of its insulin products, Humalog and Humulin, by nearly 8 percent in May. The company has previously noted that many patients do not pay the list price for insulin because they benefit from rebates negotiated with insurers, and it offers discounts of about 45 percent off the list price for people without insurance.
When Mr. Trump nominated Dr. Scott Gottlieb to be the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration in March, Democrats sharply criticized the selection, saying he could not be objective because he had earned hundreds of thousands of dollars as an investor in and consultant to pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies.
But since taking office in May, Dr. Gottlieb has put pressure on drug companies to hold down prices and has taken steps to increase competition in the prescription drug market by speeding the approval of lower-cost generic products.
“No patient should be priced out of the medicines they need,” Dr. Gottlieb said in June. And he followed up with several steps last month. “If consumers are priced out of the drugs they need,” he said, “that’s a public health concern that F.D.A. should address, within the scope of its mandate and authorities.”
John C. Rother, the executive director of the Campaign for Sustainable Rx Pricing, a coalition of consumer, labor and physician groups concerned about high drug prices, said Mr. Azar “is competent and knows a lot about health policy and the operations of the Department of Health and Human Services.”
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“Even with his drug background, it’s hard to say anything negative” about him, Mr. Rother said, adding, “We sincerely hope that he will follow through on the president’s commitment to achieve lower drug prices.”
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LeBron’s talk about Frank Ntilikina leads to on-court spat with Enes Kanter
November 14, 2017 by admin
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NEW YORK — The message embroidered on the front of LeBron James‘ baseball cap he wore after the Cleveland Cavaliers’ 104-101 comeback victory over the New York Knicks on Monday night summed up the game — and his talk — perfectly.
“All good,” the cap read in uppercase letters, followed by another line of text underneath: “Never better.”
Sure, the Cavs have been better before — they’re currently 7-7 on the season, with the Knicks win giving them their first winning streak since starting the season 2-0. And James, while still dominating the sport, probably peaked as an individual player several years ago.
But the drama between Cleveland and its Eastern Conference counterpart in New York? That may very well be unrivaled in the two teams’ shared history after all the off-court drama the past several days.
With Phil Jackson resigning as team president in June, it seemed as if James lost the target of his Knicks-based ire. That is, until New York big man Enes Kanter stepped in to fill the void.
After Monday’s game, James couldn’t resist getting in another shot at Jackson before the night was over.
“They’re playing some good basketball,” James said of the Knicks. “I think Jeff, the coach, Jeff Hornacek is finally — with the release of the old fella, he’s finally allowed to implement what he wants to do on the team and he’s showing it’s very effective.”
The “old fella” he was referring to is the 72-year-old Jackson. James flashed a smile before he said it.
As for Ntilikina, he finished with seven points, three rebounds, two assists and six steals in 25 minutes off the bench, becoming the first Knicks rookie since Mark Jackson in 1987 to swipe more than five steals in a game.
“That’s good,” Hornacek said. “A young kid to stand up to the best player in the league. So I was happy for Frank to get an opportunity to get out there and play and show him, yeah, you can say whatever you want but I’m going to still be here and be here for many years. Then you had his teammates backing him up. So that was great.”
Ntilikina shrugged off the contact he made with James.
“He was in my way to get the ball, to get the ball out of bounds,” Ntilikina said. “It could have been anyone, so I just pushed him to get the ball in. He was in my way. It could have been anyone.”
“I don’t care who you are. What do you call yourself, ‘King,’ ‘Queen,’ ‘Princess,’ whatever you are. We’re going to fight. Nobody out there is going to punk us. We went out there and played our game. We’re going to go out there and get better every day”
Enes Kanter on LeBron James
James explained his comment about Smith Jr. being a missed pick by the Knicks was a critique meant for Jackson and that he wasn’t “throwing shade at Frank at all.” Jackson fell out of favor with James last season when he referred to James’ business associates as a “posse” in an interview with ESPN. James expressed that the term had a racial connotation behind it.
Kanter only focused on how James’ words affected Ntilikina.
“I don’t care who, I just cannot let anyone disrespect my family like that, because when I play for an organization, I see my teammates and that organization as like a family,” Kanter told reporters Sunday. “And it doesn’t matter if it’s LeBron or whoever it is, I cannot just let him disrespect him like that. The coaches, the GMs, the president, this organization knows what they’re doing. … I mean, come on. That’s a rookie. You cannot just say anything like that about him.”
The chippy play between both teams continued in the second quarter when New York’s Kyle O’Quinn fouled Green in transition and landed hard on the Cavs forward. Injured Cleveland guard Isaiah Thomas was so fired up by the contact he received a technical foul for his reaction on the bench. Dwyane Wade was also T’d up with 4:22 to play in the second quarter.
The Cavs amassed more technical fouls (3) than made 3-pointers (2) in the first half and fell down by as many as 23 points before mounting their comeback.
“It was a little frustration setting in and I just told the guys, ‘Stop feeling sorry for ourselves. Let’s just play basketball. We had some good looks. Just continue to be good defensively and we’ll win this game,’” said Cavs coach Tyronn Lue. “So coming out in the third quarter it was kind of shaky, but I thought towards the end of the third quarter and the fourth quarter, it really got better.”