Keynote
Alex M. Azar II, Deputy Secretary of Health and Human Services
Tuesday, February 14, 2006
5:30 PM
Jade Room
Biography:
As Deputy Secretary of Health and Human Services, Alex Azar is the chief operating officer of the largest civilian department in the federal government, with a budget of $581 billion and 67,000 employees. Working closely with Secretary Mike Leavitt, Azar oversees all operations, including Medicare, Medicaid, welfare, public health, medical research, the regulation of food and drugs, child and family services, disease prevention, Indian health, mental health services, and many other activities. He also leads a number of initiatives at the Department, including the fight against human trafficking, implementing the President's Management Agenda, combating bio-terrorism, public health emergency preparedness, and the development and approval of all HHS regulations. He has helped lead key activities including the response to Hurricane Katrina and planning for a potential influenza pandemic. He works to promote economic liberty, especially related to health care and health security, around the world. He represents Secretary Leavitt on the boards of the American Red Cross and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
Azar was nominated by President Bush in April of 2005 and immediately began serving as Acting Deputy Secretary. He was unanimously confirmed by the Senate as Deputy Secretary on July 22, 2005.
From 2001 to 2005, Azar served as General Counsel of HHS. In that role, he was chief advisor to the Secretary on all legal matters concerning the Department and supervised approximately 21,000 administrative and federal court litigation matters. He and his 450 attorneys played a key role in the public health response to 9/11 and the subsequent anthrax attacks, the formulation of the Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act of 2002, administrative reform of Hatch-Waxman generic drug approval provisions to speed availability of generic drugs, and the procurement of bioterrorism countermeasures. He also contributed to medical liability reform, the faith-based initiative, welfare reform, Medicare and Medicaid reform, efforts to reduce the number of uninsured, efforts to speed up the availability of generic drugs, the FDA initiative to encourage science-based nutrition claims, and regulatory reform. In January of 2003, before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, Azar personally defended the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) rule protecting the privacy of medical records.