The Senate Finance Committee voted 15 to 12 on Thursday to advance Chris Klomp's nomination as deputy secretary of Health and Human Services, sending him to the full Senate for a final vote, STAT reported. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island was the only Democrat to join all Republicans in supporting him. A date for the floor vote has not been announced.
If confirmed, Klomp would become the department's second-highest official. The deputy helps run daily operations across agencies including Medicare, Medicaid, the CDC, the FDA, and the National Institutes of Health. That puts the job close to decisions families feel directly, from how quickly vaccines reach pediatricians to how drug pricing deals are carried out.
