WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 Fighting to keep his job, health secretary Tom Price says he\u2019ll write a personal check to reimburse taxpayers for his travel on charter flights taken on government business and pledged to fly commercial \u2014 \u201cno exceptions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The repayment \u2014 $51,887.31, according to Price\u2019s office \u2014 covered only the secretary\u2019s seat. Price did not address the overall cost of the flights, which could amount to several hundred thousand dollars and is under investigation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI regret the concerns this has raised regarding the use of taxpayer dollars,\u201d Price said in a statement. \u201cI was not sensitive enough to my concern for the taxpayer.\u201d His mea culpa came a day after a public rebuke from President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A former congressman from Georgia regarded as a conservative policy expert, Price said he hopes to keep his Cabinet seat. At the White House, press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders wouldn\u2019t go that far.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going to conduct a full review and we\u2019ll see what happens,\u201d Sanders told reporters. Travel by other top officials is also attracting scrutiny.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Price said the president had personally let him know of his displeasure. \u201cAs he has said publicly, he wasn\u2019t happy, and he expressed that to me very clearly,\u201d Price said Thursday evening on Fox News.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
All his travel was legally approved by officials at Health and Human Services, Price said. It amounted to 10 trips with 26 different segments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On Wednesday Trump had declared that he\u2019s \u201cnot happy\u201d over reports that Price flew on costly charters when he could have taken cheaper commercial flights. Asked whether he\u2019d fire Price, Trump said, \u201cWe\u2019ll see.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Price told reporters Thursday, \u201cI think we\u2019ve still got the confidence of the president.\u201d About the controversy, he said, \u201cWe\u2019re going to work through this.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Taxpayers \u201cwon\u2019t pay a dime for my seat on those planes,\u201d Price said in his statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Price played a supporting role in the fruitless Republican effort to repeal Barack Obama\u2019s health care law \u2014 another source of frustration for the president.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Prompted partly by controversy over Price, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has launched a wide-ranging investigation into travel by Trump\u2019s political appointees. On Wednesday the committee sent requests for detailed travel records to the White House and 24 departments and agencies, dating back to the president\u2019s first day in office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trips by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt have also drawn criticism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A senior GOP lawmaker urged Trump to lay down some rules. \u201cConsidering the many travel options to and from Washington, D.C., I\u2019m urging you to emphasize to Cabinet secretaries the necessity of using reasonable and cost-effective modes of travel in accordance with federal restrictions,\u201d Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, wrote to Trump on Thursday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The president had vented about Price to reporters on Wednesday as he left the White House for a trip to sell his tax overhaul in Indianapolis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI was looking into it, and I will look into it, and I will tell you personally I\u2019m not happy about it,\u201d Trump responded when asked about Price\u2019s travel. \u201cI am not happy about it. I\u2019m going to look at it. I\u2019m not happy about it and I let him know it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Price\u2019s travels were first reported last week by Politico, which said cheaper commercial flights were a viable option in many cases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On a June trip to Nashville, Price also had lunch with his son, who lives in that city, according to Politico. Another trip was from Dulles International Airport in the Washington suburbs to Philadelphia International Airport, a distance of 135 miles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Last Friday the HHS inspector general\u2019s office announced it was conducting a review to see if Price complied with federal travel regulations, which generally require officials to minimize costs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Price\u2019s office had initially said the secretary\u2019s demanding schedule sometimes did not permit the use of commercial airline flights. Price says he\u2019s fully cooperating with investigators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trump\u2019s publicly expressed displeasure \u2014 or ambivalence \u2014 has been a sign in the past that the tenure of a key aide will soon be over.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In August, the president was asked if he still had confidence in Steve Bannon, then a senior strategist in the White House. \u201cHe\u2019s a good person. He actually gets very unfair press in that regard. But we\u2019ll see what happens with Mr. Bannon,\u201d Trump said. Bannon was out three days later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Price, an ally of House Speaker Paul Ryan, is a past chairman of the House Budget Committee, where he was a frequent critic of wasteful spending. As HHS secretary, he has questioned whether the Medicaid health insurance program for low-income people delivers results that are worth the billions of dollars taxpayers spend for the coverage. He\u2019s a former orthopedic surgeon who once practiced in an inner-city hospital.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The repayment \u2014 $51,887.31, according to Price\u2019s office \u2014 covered only the secretary\u2019s seat. Price did not address the overall cost of the flights, which could amount to several hundred thousand dollars and is under investigation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":59327,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":68,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[106,31,15,68,33],"tags":[],"coauthors":[1733,2855],"class_list":["post-23844","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-brief","category-home","category-management","category-leadership","category-newsletters"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"BRNSDW2B2RFIXAQGWZRCCJZWQE","arc_canonical_url":"\/management\/leadership\/2017\/09\/29\/price-says-hes-reimbursing-costs-for-his-private-flights\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n