SCOOP: Trump officials spent the fall actively lobbying Congress not to give states the money health officials insisted they need to vaccine some 300 million Americans. At that time the Trump admin had only provided states $200 million. (Thread)
Trump officials have insisted publicly that states wouldn't need much money for the vaccine effort, but as I show here: The Trump administration wasn't just dismissing states' concerns, it was actively undermining their efforts to get more money from Congress
For some context: The Trump admin was simultaneously spending billions to help drug makers develop these vaccines. They gave Moderna $1 billion alone for clinical trials. States had insisted they needed $8.4 billion for the mass vaccination effort.
I was shocked when I learned this. Turns out, the official at the center of all of this, Paul Mango, wasn't bashful about his efforts. He insisted states couldn't justify why they needed more money. He accused them, on the record, of wanting the $ to make up for lost tax revenue
As you'll see in my story: Both Republican and Dem staffers acknowledged the lobbying and thought it was misguided. Congress eventually allocated states some $4.5 billion, which didn't get to states until this month. Mango told me Congress "forced" HHS to give states more money.
By the way the former CDC director also said states needed roughly $6 billion. Mango told congressional staffers the money wasn't needed. He also accused CDC of lobbying Congress behind HHS' back and "trying to help their friends ... even though they didn’t have any real plan"
To be fair: States were asked to submit financial plans to HHS justifying how they'd spend additional money. I was unable to obtain those plans. It's possible that states' requests were vague. The question is: Was that enough to justify keeping any additional money from states?
State public health officials repeatedly tried to convince HHS their lobbying was misguided. ASTHO, which represents state health officials, requested a meeting with Azar on Oct. 20 to discuss this. The meeting request was denied.
New scoop from me: The wife of the HHS deputy secretary was hired in June to lobby HHS. She's lobbying on hyper technical issues despite having no health care background.
Namely, Celgene execs talking about how their prices might actually stifle competitors' efforts to develop Cancer drugs -- as if it's a good thing. For an industry that talks about "patients first" that's a really, really bad look.
New: The House Oversight Committee is out with reports from its 18 month investigation into high drug prices. The reports go a long away in substantiating how companies keep prices high. But I was most struck by some of the embarrassing dirt they dug up. statnews.com/2020/09/30/inv…
