Lori Chavez-DeRemer. Credit: DeRemer
The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee has scheduled a Feb. 12 hearing on the nomination of Lori Chavez-DeRemer to be Labor secretary.
Chavez-DeRemer is a Republican from Oregon who served in the U.S. House of Representatives in the previous Congress.
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President Donald Trump said in November, when he nominated her, that he believed one focus of her work as the head of the U.S. Department of Labor could be developing training and apprenticeship programs.
Related: Trump's Labor secretary pick led employer health plan data access bill, as House member
As head of the Labor Department, Chavez-DeRemer would also be in charge of the Employee Benefits Security Administration. EBSA has jurisdiction over employers' self-insured health plans, employer-sponsored retirement plans and other employee benefit programs.
Trump has started to cancel many regulations adopted by former President Joe Biden. He has not yet indicated how he will handle two Biden administration benefits projects — a controversial effort to set standards for provider networks, network provider health rules and other "nonquantitative treatment limits" at mental health and substance abuse benefits — and efforts to set Affordable Care Act commercial health insurance rules for 2026.
Chavez-DeRemer could play a role in revamping or replacing those projects.
She is the wife of an anesthesiologist. While she was in the House, she introduced a pharmacy benefit manager bill. The bill would have required PBMs to send employers the anonymized data employers need to audit their prescription drug plans.
As Labor secretary, she could join in implementing any PBM legislation that gets through Congress.
Her nomination is subject to confirmation by the Senate.
The Senate HELP Committee will stream live video of her hearing and post a recording of the video on its website.
In related news, U.S. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Mike Crapo said he had a constructive meeting with Dr. Mehmet Oz, Trump's nominee to be the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
CMS oversees Medicare, Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act programs that affect the commercial health insurance market, including HealthCare.gov and the state-based ACA public exchange programs.
"I value his advocacy for consumer choice and his commitment to expanding Americans' access to affordable, high-quality health care," Crapo, an Idaho Republican, said in a statement about the meeting. "I look forward to considering his nomination before the Finance Committee."
At press time, the committee had not yet scheduled a hearing on the Oz nomination.
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Allison Bell
Allison Bell, a senior reporter at ThinkAdvisor and BenefitsPRO, previously was an associate editor at National Underwriter Life & Health. She has a bachelor's degree in economics from Washington University in St. Louis and a master's degree in journalism from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. She can be reached through X at @Think_Allison.
