Chicago attorney faces hearing for top Health and Human Services post

June 08--Eric Hargan, a Chicago lawyer nominated for the No. 2 job at the federal Health and Human Services Department, declined Wednesday at a Senate hearing to say whether he would keep parts of the Affordable Care Act.

"That's a subject of a lot of dispute here on Capitol Hill," he said.

The Senate Finance Committee is weighing Hargan's nomination but didn't vote to advance his name to the Senate floor during Wednesday's hearing. Still, Republican committee Chairman Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah called him an "excellent pick," likely setting the stage for his approval.

The Department of Health and Human Services has primary responsibility for operating the ACA insurance marketplaces and also oversees the Medicare and Medicaid programs that provide health insurance to more than 100 million Americans. In questioning Hargan, Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., quoted a GOP senator as saying parts of the law commonly known as Obamacare are working.

Hargan, 49, responded by saying the health care landscape has changed and that "I am not particularly a policy person in this area."

He served at HHS during former President George W. Bush's administration and was on President Donald Trump's transition team at the department. He also was co-chair of Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner's Healthcare and Human Services Transition Committee in 2014 and 2015.

A Hinsdale resident, Hargan until recently worked at the Greenberg Traurig law firm and taught at Loyola University Chicago School of Law.

A native of Mounds, Ill., Hargan is a graduate of Harvard College and Columbia Law School. Under Rauner, Hargan was on Illinois' State Health Improvement Planning Council and the State Innovation Model Workgroup, both of which examined health care.

Republican Tommy Thompson, the former Wisconsin governor who led HHS during Hargan's previous tenure with the agency, told the panel Wednesday that Hargan was an "outstanding individual" who will serve "with honor."

The panel's top Democrat, Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, though, took Hargan to task for a 2007 story in The Wall Street Journal that said he "used his position" to block efforts by the Food and Drug Administration to bolster food-safety inspections during his previous stint.

The story Wyden referenced said the FDA, after a spate of illnesses caused by contaminated vegetables, had come up with an industry-endorsed plan calling for tough new regulations for handling of fresh produce. But the plan sank after it got a cold reception from FDA's parent agency, HHS. People close to the FDA said Hargan, then the department's acting deputy secretary, had rejected the proposals, the story said.

Asked by a Tribune reporter about the story after the hearing, Hargan declined to comment.

kskiba@tribpub.com

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