Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price has been taking a lot of private jets to get from here to there of late. Two dozen since early May at a cost of more than $300,000 to be exact, according to the fabulous reporting by Politico’s Rachana Pradhan and Dan Diamond.
That’s a big number.
Price hasn’t said much personally about why he needs to fly privately so often — as documented by Politico, there are plenty of other public transport options available to him — but, on Thursday, they got HHS spokeswoman Charmaine Yoest to offer her thoughts on the question.
Here they are:
“The secretary has taken commercial flights for official business after his confirmation. He has used charter aircraft for official business in order to accommodate his demanding schedule. The week of September 13 was one of those times, as the secretary was directing the recovery effort for Irma, which had just devastated Florida, while simultaneously directing the ongoing recovery for Hurricane Harvey … Some believe the HHS secretary should be Washington-focused. Dr. Price is focused on hearing from Americans across the country.”
Yoest’s answer can be broken into 2 parts:
1) Price took private flights because he had to deal with hurricanes Harvey and Irma.
2) Price took private flights because he likes to get out of Washington and meet real people.
Let’s debunk each of these claims.
As Politico notes, 17 of the 24 charter flights Price took came before Harvey hit Houston. He took a private plane, for example, to the Aspen Ideas Festival — which, it’s worth noting, is not exactly packed with average Americans from across the country.
The second claim by Yoest is even more outlandish.
Follow this logic from Yoest: “Some” people think Price should always stay in Washington —-> Price likes to get outside of the Beltway to meet everyday Americans —-> private planes.
Feels like a pretty big logical leap from “I like to meet average Americans” to “I need to take a private plan to do that,” right? In fact, you could argue — very convincingly — that taking private planes is the opposite of meeting with average Americans.
Sometimes, a bad story is just a bad story. There’s no amount of spin that can save it.
Price apparently likes to take private planes. (As I wrote earlier this week: Who doesn’t?!) And Politico found out about it.
That’s not a great look for a Cabinet member — especially one who is leading the charge on repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act, a move that could lead to billions fewer dollars going to the states to cover health care.
Attempting to cast Price as some sort of working-man’s hero because of his use of private planes just doesn’t, ahem, fly.