WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s second health secretary won Senate approval Wednesday. Alex Azar will take over a sprawling department shaken by his predecessor’s early exit.
The GOP-majority Senate voted 55-43, largely along party lines, to confirm the former drug company and government executive to join the Trump Cabinet.
A 50-year-old Ivy League-educated lawyer, Azar says he has four main priorities for the Health and Human Services Department: help curb the cost of prescription drugs; make health insurance more affordable and available; continue bipartisan efforts to focus Medicare payments on quality; and confront the opioid addiction epidemic.
Trump’s first health chief, former Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., resigned in the fall amid an outcry over his use of costly private charter aircraft for official travel. Price had been an important player in Trump’s ill-fated campaign to roll back President Barack Obama’s health law, an effort that fell far short of the full “repeal and replace” Republicans long promised.
