At a White House ceremony yesterday, Kirstjen Nielsen was introduced by President Trump as his nominee to lead the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The previous secretary, John Kelly, is now the White House Chief of Staff. Elaine Duke is currently serving as the Acting Secretary of DHS.
Nielsen is currently the principal deputy chief of staff under Kelly and worked for him as well when he ran DHS.
Read more about the nomination here and here.
Today, President Donald Trump issued a presidential directive to broaden the development of business association health plans, ease restrictions on short-term medical insurance and expand employer health care reimbursement accounts. The memorandum starts the rulemaking process, which will forge the details of the plans’ requirements. The White House is attempting to expand access to health insurance policies that face fewer regulations after several defeats of ACA repeal this year.
The new regulatory push on adjusting health insurance offerings was signaled by the White House earlier this year but deferred by ongoing and eventually stalled legislative action on repealing and replacing the 2010 health care law.
The order does two important things.
First, it asks cabinet officials to look for ways to expand short-term, limited-duration insurance. These plans generally come with less coverage than health plans sold through the ACA’s individual market, but they have grown in popularity since the ACA’s passage — even though people who buy them face federal penalties because their coverage does not meet the ACA’s standards.
The Presidential memo urges regulators to reverse an Obama administration policy that capped the duration of short-term policies at three months. If that’s enacted, those policies could return to lasting up to almost a year in many states.
Secondly, the order directs agencies to ease rules that allow small businesses, and possibly individuals, to band together in arrangements called “association health plans.” Such arrangements do exist today in some capacity, but expanding them could cause legal headaches for the Administration.
President Trump released a list of measures to restrict immigration that the Administration wants in exchange for passing the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program into law. The White House called for the border wall; tougher penalties for asylum fraud; faster deportation of unaccompanied minors; a grant cutoff to sanctuary cities; restriction of permanent-residency sponsorship by U.S. citizens to spouses and minor children; and a merit-based points system for green cards.
The documents do not specify whether all of the President’s policy demands need to be included in a legislative deal to codify DACA.
Politico has posted both the executive summary and the seven-page principles and policies document.
Eric Hargan was officially confirmed by the Senate on a 57-38 vote yesterday afternoon.
Hargan’s confirmation comes at a crucial time for HHS, which has relied on career staffer Don Wright to lead the agency since Tom Price resigned as secretary on Friday. Secretary Price’s recent exit helped accelerate the consideration of HHS nominees. Hargan will likely serve as acting secretary until Price’s replacement is confirmed. No word on who will take that position.
Hargan has served in several roles at HHS before between 2003 and 2007, including Acting Deputy Secretary, before leaving government work to serve as a lawyer in Chicago. Hargan also served on the Trump transition team for HHS.