Tom Price, maybe the most corrupt nominee before the Senate

In the pantheon of corruption that is Popular Vote Loser Donald Trump's cabinet nominees, Rep. Tom Price (R-GA) is fighting hard for a place at the top. Nominated to be Secretary of Health and Human Services, Price has had to answer for an ever-growing list of ethical problems, most seriously the very credible appearance of insider-trading on his part while he serves in Congress. He's been legislating on issues that would help the healthcare companies he's been investing in, and in some cases getting hefty campaign contributions in return. Price seems to be steeped in a culture in which it's fine to use your power solely to enrich yourself, a culture The New York Times David Leonhardt has identified.

Before coming to Congress, Price was an orthopedic surgeon—"the highest-paid doctors, with an average salary of $443,000 in 2015—which, coincidentally, was almost the exact cutoff for the famed top 1 percent of the income distribution."

Yet many orthopedists are not happy with their pay. Only 44 percent feel “fairly compensated,” a smaller share than in almost every other specialty. A lot of orthopedists aren’t even happy being doctors. Just 49 percent say they would go into medicine if they had to make the decision again, compared with 64 percent of all doctors. [...] Price had a thriving practice near Atlanta before being elected to Congress in 2004. His estimated net worth of more than $10 million (and possibly a lot more) makes him one of the House’s wealthier members. [...] Even without any larger context, his actions are disqualifying. He’s repeatedly placed personal enrichment above the credibility of Congress. The behavior is substantially worse than giving money to an illegal immigrant (which defeated a George W. Bush nominee) or failing to pay nanny taxes (which scuttled a Bill Clinton nominee). But of course there is a larger context. Price has devoted much of his political career opposing expansion of health insurance. His preferred replacement of Obamacare would reduce health care benefits for sicker, poorer and older Americans.

He did not adequately answer to any of this in hearings, Democrats weren’t given adequate time to question or vet him and Republicans flat-out don’t care. This week, after a prolonged fight by Democrats on the Senate floor, Republicans will put this man in the most corrupt cabinet the nation will probably ever suffer, without even blinking. Because the only thing that matters as far as this nomination goes is that he’ll work to erase all traces of President Obama’s defining achievement.