WASHINGTON - Just days after denouncing “out-of-control” drug prices, President Donald Trump appears set to show he doesn’t mean it by naming a former pharmaceutical company executive to run the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. If Alex Azar is nominated and his nomination confirmed, then Big Pharma’s coup d’etat in the health care sphere will be virtually complete.

In his public statements, Alex Azar has made clear that he is opposed to measures to restrain drug company profiteering and limit improper marketing and favors weaker drug safety approval standards.

Americans understand, passionately, that drug company price gouging leads to rationing of care. It is unethical and must end. Even President Trump says so. But it is highly unlikely that a pharmaceutical company executive who has made passionate arguments against price restraints is going to advance real reform. Much more likely is that he serves as the instrument by which Big Pharma aims to defend its monopolies and unaffordable prices.

The swamp only gets worse. Tom Price supported Big Pharma in the U.S. Congress. Now apparently Trump has decided to cut out the middleman, and let a pharmaceutical executive literally run the health department.

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