Seema Verma (right), the administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, is close to Vice President Mike Pence, having helped create conservative Medicaid makeover plans for Indiana and several other red states. | Mark Wilson/Getty Images Who will replace Price? A dozen names are circulating as possible successors.

Tom Price hadn’t even stepped down when the Washington policy world was buzzing about who was likely to replace him.

A dozen names are being talked about as the next HHS Secretary, including several belonging to people already serving in the administration. But of course President Donald Trump often defies Washington's conventional wisdom.


The rumored short-list includes former Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), who would sail through Senate confirmation but would probably be considered too moderate on Obamacare, to Dr. Mehmet Oz, a cardio-thoracic surgeon made famous by his talk show, which Trump has appeared on. Other current or former members of Congress who could be considered include Rep. Fred Upton and former Rep. Dave Camp.

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Here are the names getting particular attention:

Seema Verma: The administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is responsible for those two big health care entitlement programs and much of Obamacare. She is close to Vice President Mike Pence, having helped create conservative Medicaid makeover plans for Indiana and several other red states.

Verma has limited management experience, having run a small consulting firm, and HHS is a sprawling health and social services agency that includes everything from the National Cancer Institute to Head Start. During the failed Obamacare repeal efforts in Congress, however, she earned plaudits for her ability to quietly explain to Republican lawmakers the various repeal bills, and how they would impact specific states. She’s already been confirmed by Congress once — by a 55-43 vote.



Rick Scott: The Florida governor won praise from Trump after Hurricane Irma tore through his state and has publicly said he is weighing a Senate run next year against Bill Nelson. But Democrats have turned up the heat on the two-term governor over the tragedy at a Hollywood nursing home following the storm that claimed 12 victims.

Scott is a former hospital executive who became CEO of Columbia/HSA. He and Trump have known each other for two decades, and Trump likes Scott’s record as governor and as a business tycoon. Scott chaired a super PAC that promoted Trump’s candidacy during the presidential campaign. But Scott's former company also faced huge fines for health care fraud.

Scott Gottlieb: Trump’s FDA commissioner has been in and out of government, holding prior jobs in the FDA as well as in CMS, where during the George W. Bush administration he worked on the implementation of the Medicare drug benefit. He’s a physician and medical school professor who has also been affiliated with the American Enterprise Institute.

The conservative Gottlieb favors looser rules for what drug and device makers are able to tell doctors about unapproved uses of their products. But he has surprised some Democrats with his outreach to FDA career staff who may not share all his views and his transparency. His blog posts, speeches and access to the media offer a big contrast to Price, who has been noticeably inaccessible.

David Shulkin (right), pictured with Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price (left), is a favorite of President Donald Trump, and the only cabinet nominee to be unanimously confirmed. | Susan Walsh/AP Photo

David Shulkin: The VA secretary is a Trump favorite, and the only Cabinet nominee to be unanimously confirmed. However, Shulkin has come under criticism for combining leisure with business on his official travel — he attended a Wimbledon championship tennis match, toured Westminster Abbey and took a cruise on the Thames while meeting this summer with European officials about veterans’ issues, The Washington Post reported Friday. Shulkin did fly commercial but his wife's expenses were covered by taxpayers, according to the Post.

A physician and former health administrator, Shulkin is also the only member of Trump’s Cabinet who is a holdover from the Obama years; he served as the VA’s undersecretary of health in that administration. Now he’s trying to get the massive, scandal-plagued VA health care back on track to serve around 9 million Americans a year. He has made the agency’s performance and improvement programs public and transparent. He still sees patients — in person and via telemedicine.

Marsha Blackburn: The long-time House Republican has conservative credibility on Obamacare, having been a chief critic of the program in the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and on social issues such as abortion, having led the House’s investigation into Planned Parenthood funding last year. But the Tennessee representative has no experience in the health care industry or running a major organization and she is said to be eyeing retiring Sen. Bob Corker’s Tennessee seat.

Don Wright: The longtime HHS bureaucrat, doctor and public health expert was named acting HHS secretary Friday following Price's resignation.

Wright, whose focus is emergency preparedness and infectious disease, had been the acting assistant secretary for health at HHS — a role he’s held since February. He is also the deputy assistant secretary for health and director of the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion.

Wright was appointed by George W. Bush to serve as the alternate U.S. delegate to the WHO Executive Board and served as HHS principal deputy assistant secretary for Health during the Bush administration, according to his HHS biography.

Bobby Jindal: The former Louisiana governor was a rival of candidate Trump in the 2016 campaign and the rivalry was deep and visceral, although he eventually said he’d support Trump. But Jindal is steeped in health care. He was doing health policy academically and professionally before he entered politics. He studied health systems at Oxford, headed his state’s Department of Health and Hospitals at age 24, was executive director of a national bipartisan Medicare commission, worked in HHS under George W. Bush, served in Congress, and then became governor. He is deeply conservative, economically and socially, and favors a deregulated free-market health care system.

Rick Santorum: The former Pennsylvania senator, another one-time Trump rival in the 2016 GOP race, is a favorite of religious conservatives because of his staunch anti-abortion views. He popped up on the national health care stage last month as he worked with Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Bill Cassidy (R-La,) on their last-ditch but failed effort to pass an Obamacare repeal bill before the legislative window for a 50-vote win closed Sept. 30.

Ben Carson: The retired neurosurgeon and former rival for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination is another long shot. Carson, now HUD secretary, was supposedly in the mix for HHS when Trump initially named his Cabinet. Some reports at the time citing his associates said he had turned it down.