Pence has been quietly working behind the scenes to carry out the Trump administration’s goal of gutting funding for women’s health care — which he helped accomplish by installing allies from his days as governor of Indiana, which Politico described as a “cadre of officials that one HHS official called ‘Indiana mafia.’”
Installing allies whom he had relationships with back in Indiana — such as Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, Surgeon General Jerome Adams, and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services administrator Seema Verma — have helped Pence push for one of his key priorities: defunding Planned Parenthood.
View the complete article by Emily Singer on the National Memo website here.