Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Ron Wyden led other panel Democrats in boycotting a planned Jan. 31 vote on the confirmation of Rep. Tom Price as HHS Secretary. Wyden said the nominee "misled the public" and held back information on discounted shares of an Australian biomedical firm he bought. Committee Chair Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, was surprised by the setback to President Trump's nominee, and swore to bring Senate Democrats back to the committee to "do their job.”

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, urged US Department of Health and Human Services secretary nominee Tom Price to preserve the "Open Payments" database that was established by Grassley's Physician Payment Sunshine Act, even if the Affordable Care Act, by which the Sunshine law was enacted, is repealed.

HHS Secretary Nominee Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., told members of a key Senate health panel that he was "not aware" of purchases his broker made of stocks in health-care companies including Zimmer Biomet Holdings Inc., shortly after introducing The HIP Act to delay a CMS orthopedics bundled payment program. The appointee also signaled his intentions 'not to pull the rug out' on millions of Americans' insurance coverage in any Affordable Care Act replacement plan he works on.