Toby Cosgrove

Cleveland Clinic CEO Toby Cosgrove is among the people President-elect Donald Trump is meeting with to discuss the top job at the Department of Veterans Affairs.

(Joshua Gunter, cleveland.com)

WASHINGTON -- Cleveland Clinic CEO Delos "Toby" Cosgrove interrupted vacation plans to fly to Palm Beach and meet with President-elect Donald Trump Tuesday.

A Cleveland Clinic spokeswoman said Cosgrove and the Clinic would not discuss the meeting, which occurred in the afternoon at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate, where the president-elect is spending the Christmas holiday. Spokeswoman Eileen Sheil said Cosgrove was heading out on vacation Monday when he got the call asking him to come meet with Trump on Tuesday.

Trump's presidential transition press office has not responded to a request to discuss the meeting, which was first noted by reporters in the press pool covering Trump.

Bloomberg News reported that a source said the meeting was in connection with Trump's selection of a new executive to head the Department of Veterans Affairs. That would make this a repeat performance of sorts for the Clinic executive, a heart surgeon and Vietnam veteran who heads one of the nation's leading medical centers, one he has expanded with an international footprint.

President Barack Obama spoke with Cosgrove in 2014 about heading VA, then in the midst of a scandal over long waits and cover-ups involving veterans who needed medical care. Cosgrove ultimately said no to the job.

He nevertheless still talks with the White House on other matters, although he has been critical of the Affordable Care Act, or "Obamacare," saying it has helped destabilize the healthcare industry and added to paperwork requirements. The regulations are "seven feet high," he told CNBC in September.

Cosgrove also recently agreed to be on a new Trump advisory group on jobs and the economy. And he was spotted Friday at Trump Tower in New York.

Trump also met Tuesday with Luis Quinonez, head of IQ Management Systems, about the VA job, Bloomberg said. Trump also is considering U.S. Navy Admiral Michelle Howard, who was the first black woman to command a Navy ship, and Fox News contributor Pete Hegseth, a former Army National Guard captain, to head VA, Bloomberg said.