Just a few weeks before Trump tapped Price to lead the Department of Health & Human Services in November, the congressman took the stage at an Atlanta conference for vendors who sell canes, hospital beds and power wheelchairs. Price was the star of the show — a conference with 5,000 attendees. He spoke to the gathered crowd about the Medicare cuts plaguing the industry and pledged to fight them. The leaders of the Medtrade conference honored Price with an award for his stalwart advocacy and convened a $100-per-person fundraiser in his honor.
Price, 62, a tea party Republican and orthopedic surgeon from the northern Atlanta suburbs, was elected to Congress in 2004 after four terms in the Georgia state Legislature. A third-generation physician, he has said he entered politics on a quest to limit government meddling in health care. He has won significant campaign support over the years from drug firms and physician groups.
Records obtained through a public records request show that Price has taken an interest in his constituents’ struggles with the FDA. He hand-signed a letter of concern over the availability of heart valves used in pediatric surgeries in 2005. Four years later, he urged review of a local company’s sperm-analysis device. He dubbed the company a “pillar of the community” and said it should be exempted from a clinical trial that would be “impossible to pass.” Earlier this year, his staffer pressed the FDA on behalf of a constituent trying to get capsaicin palmitate, a hot-pepper ingredient similar to one available over the counter — on a list of approved products for specialized pain creams.
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