Trump’s Health and Human Service Secretary Tom Price has resigned amid scandal

PRESIDENT Donald Trump’s health secretary has resigned amid a scandal over his private use of costly charter flights.

PRESIDENT Donald Trump’s health secretary, Tom Price, has resigned, after his travel on costly charter flights triggered investigations and angered his boss.
“Secretary of Health and Human Services Thomas Price offered his resignation earlier today and the President accepted. The President intends to designate Don J Wright of Virginia to serve as Acting Secretary, effective at 11:59 p.m. on September 29, 2017,” the White House said.

“Mr. Wright currently serves as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Health and Director of the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion.”

Tom Price’s partial repayment and public regrets couldn’t save his job.

The Health and Human Services secretary became the first member of the president’s Cabinet to leave office in a turbulent young administration that has seen several high-ranking White House aides ousted. Price served less than eight months.

BREAKING: HHS Secretary Tom Price offered his resignation earlier today and President Trump accepted pic.twitter.com/zCB9Q0RXcJ

— NBC News (@NBCNews) September 29, 2017

US Secretary of Health and Human Services Tom Price has resigned. Picture: AFP/Saul Loeb

Trump had said he was “not happy” with Price for hiring private charters on the taxpayers’ dime for official travel, when cheaper commercial flights would have worked.

Price is a “good man,” Trump added, but “I don’t like the optics,” he told reporters as he left the White House for the weekend.

An orthopedic surgeon turned politician, Price rose to become Budget Committee chairman in the House, where he was known as a fiscal conservative. When Price joined the administration, Trump touted him as a conservative policy expert who could write a new health care bill to replace the Obama-era Affordable Care Act. But Price became more of a supporting player in the GOP’s futile health care campaign, while Vice President Mike Pence took the lead, particularly in dealing with the Senate.

The perception of Price jetting around while GOP lawmakers laboured to repeal “Obamacare” (including a three-nation trip in May to Africa and Europe) raised eyebrows on Capitol Hill. Price flew on military aircraft overseas.

Although much of Trump’s ire over the health care failure has been aimed at the Republican-controlled Congress, associates of the president said he also assigns some blame to Price, whom he believes did not do a good job of selling the GOP plan.

The flap over Price has overshadowed Trump’s agenda and prompted scrutiny of other Cabinet members’ travel. The House Oversight and Government Reform committee has launched a broad investigation of top political appointees.

Price had been dogged by criticism over a pattern of booking costly charter flights for official travel.

The Environmental Protection Agency says four flights on non-commercial aircraft taken by Administrator Scott Pruitt were preapproved by ethics lawyers. Documents show Pruitt and his staff chartered a private plane for an August 4 trip from Denver to Durango, Colorado, to visit the Gold King Mine, site of a spill last year. The administrator also took three flights on government-owned planes to New York, North Dakota and a roundtrip between airports in Pruitt’s native Oklahoma.

Letters released by EPA show the flights cost a total of US$58,000 (AU$74,000) and were approved by the agency’s general counsel’s office.

EPA’s inspector general opened an inquiry last month into Pruitt’s frequent taxpayer-funded travel on commercial planes. The Associated Press reported earlier this year that Pruitt often spends weekends at his Tulsa home.

Donald Trump with Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Tom Price on August 8. Picture: Reuters/Jonathan Ernst

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke says he’s taken three charter flights since March, including a late-night trip costing more than US$12,000 (AU$15,300) from Las Vegas to his home state of Montana in June.

Zinke says no commercial flight was available at the time he planned to speak to Western governors.

Zinke said Friday he also travelled by private plane in Alaska in May and the US Virgin Islands in March. Zinke wants to expand energy production in Alaska, while the Interior Department oversees the three US Virgin Islands. Zinke says he also went on a military flight with the agriculture secretary to see wildfires in Montana. Zinke says his travel was approved in advance by Interior’s ethics officials.

He says he works to “make sure I am above the law and I follow the law.”

Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price has resigned. Picture: AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais

The secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs says information about his official travel will be posted on the department’s website.

Secretary David Shulkin says he has not used private aircraft for official business, but has taken six trips on military aircraft.

The trip details will include the type of aircraft, members of the travelling party and information about the events he was attending.