Today, the Texas Public Policy Foundation announced that former Deputy Secretary of Health and Human Services Eric Hargan will be the Distinguished Senior Fellow for Right on Healthcare, the foundation’s initiative concerning health care policy. Hargan, a former private health care attorney, was a key player in Operation Warp Speed, producing a Covid-19 vaccine in under a year.
“Eric Hargan has served as the Deputy Secretary of Health and Human Services under two Administrations and as a health care attorney in the private sector,” said David Balat, director of the TPPF’s Right on Healthcare initiative. “He has a deep expertise in the regulatory process and was key in the remarkable work related to Operation Warp Speed, the continued investigation of the bloated supply chain in the health care industry and operationalizing the growth of telemedicine. We are deeply honored to have his level of expertise and experience as we continue in our work.”
“I’m proud to be a Senior Fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation,” said Hargan. “It’s an honor to be part of an organization with a long track record of proposing and implementing bipartisan solutions that address the current and future needs of health care.”
Hargan first served at HHS from 2003 to 2007 in a variety of capacities, including holding the position of Acting Deputy Secretary. After leaving HHS, Mr. Hargan was a law partner in health care regulation, mergers and acquisitions, corporate finance, and government relations. He also taught at Loyola Law School in Chicago, focusing on administrative law and health care regulations. Hargan later returned to HHS under the Trump administration, serving as the Deputy Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) from 2017 to 2021; he also served as Acting Secretary for several months in 2017-2018.
During his career, Hargan gathered accomplishments in a vast array of health care related fields. He served on the Board of Operation Warp Speed, starting in Spring of 2020, helping to develop the project and coordinate HHS agencies. He also worked with multiple public and private sector entities to facilitate efforts across the entire endeavor, both vaccines and therapeutics. In March 2020, he launched the $175 billion Provider Relief Fund, overseeing it until July 2020. Hargan convened HHS-White House team and coordinated with HRSA to administer, and United Health Group to service, the fund’s operations, resulting in $26 billion in relief sent to providers in under two weeks from passage of the CARES Act.