Over the next quarter-century, her successors at HEW were confronted with an ever-growing roster of concerns related to public well-being. The Department funded clinics to serve agricultural workers, published the first Surgeon General’s report on smoking and health, established exhaust emission standards for new cars, oversaw the launch of Medicare and Medicaid, regulated toy safety, and improved access for the handicapped. HEW also became the home for programs including the Indian Health Service and Office of the Inspector General.
The Department was reorganized again during the administration of President Jimmy Carter, when the Education component of HEW split off to become a Cabinet-level department unto itself. The agencies that remained were bunched together under the revised name of Department of Health and Human Services.
In the 21st century, some of HHS’s responses to Americans’ health needs have whipsawed depending on the administration in power at the time.
Under President George W. Bush, initiatives for fighting bioterrorism became a priority following the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Bush also created Faith-Based and Community Initiatives in six of his Cabinet Departments, including HHS, and promoted the distribution of grant money to faith-based organizations providing social services. Bush’s HHS Secretary, career politician Tommy Thompson, also played an essential role in the Administration’s commitment to combat the spread of HIV/AIDS worldwide.
When Barack Obama came into the Oval Office, he successfully pushed for the passage of the Affordable Care Act, and his Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius, was tasked with implementing the program. The much-anticipated launch of “Obamacare” health insurance suffered some bad publicity when the government website set up to register applicants crashed due to high demand. Eventually, however, the chaos was resolved, and the ACA helped millions of uninsured Americans, including those with pre-existing conditions, secure affordable health insurance. But as a result of the initial difficulties, Sebelius bowed to public pressure to resign.
Republicans remained skeptical about the ACA’s benefits. They filed several court challenges, and GOP members in Congress attempted to water down the act.
In 2016, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s “repeal and replace” mantra regarding Obamacare was a major talking point of his campaign. And after he won the election and was sworn in as 45th President of the United States, one of his very first actions was to sign an executive order to “waive, defer, grant exemption from, or delay” the Affordable Care Act.
To assist in that regard, Trump appointed Tom Price, an orthopedic surgeon who also represented Georgia in the United States Congress, as his first HHS Director. Prior to becoming politically active, Price had been active in the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, hardly a mainstream group, but one that was extremely vocal against “socialized medicine.” Certainly Price was in the anti-ACA camp.
But his stint at HHS turned out to be brief. In his first few months in office, Price racked up more than a million dollars in travel expenses on charter jets and military funding – and he used taxpayer money to pay for it. This raised a red flag with journalists and ethics experts, and Price’s actions soon became the focus of a bipartisan Congressional probe. He was forced to resign only eight months after he had been sworn in.