(1-10-17) Who will president-elect Donald Trump nominate as the new Assistant Secretary for Mental Health and Substance Abuse?
Hearings begin today for the controversial big name cabinet posts so it will be a while before the Senate gets around to the White House’s choice for this new job in the Department of Health and Human Services, but four names already are being circulated on Capitol Hill.
Even before the $6.3 billion 21st Century Cures Act was signed into law last month (that’s the omnibus bill that contained mental health reforms), I began lobbying for Miami-Dade County Judge Steve Leifman.
The others being mentioned are Dr. John Wernert, who runs Indiana’s mental health system; Dr. Robert Heinssen, a program director at the National Institute of Mental Health; and Dr. Ellie McCance-Katz, the chief medical director in Rhode Island. Of course, other candidates might surface in the coming days and it’s also possible that Trump could pull a name out of hat that surprises everyone.
But I hope not.
It will take a strong, knowledgeable and accomplished leader to implement the hard-fought reforms that became law primarily because of Rep. Tim Murphy (R-Pa.) and Sens. John Cornyn (R-Tx.), Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and Bill Cassidy (R-La.)