Eric Hargan

Eric David Hargan (June 3, 1968–) is an American lawyer and government official who served as United States Deputy Secretary of Health and Human Services from October 2017 to January 2021. A member of the Republican Party, Hargan previously acted in this role in 2007 under the George W. Bush administration.

On October 10, 2017, President Donald Trump appointed Hargan as acting United States Secretary of Health and Human Services, which he held until January 29, 2018, when Alex Azar assumed the office.

Quotes

 * Well, at HHS, like the rest of the executive branch, you have to faithfully execute the laws that are given to us by Congress. That's the ultimate role. So, the laws that we have to execute in our relationship to the [Affordable Care Act] or any other law is that we're supposed to faithfully execute it. Now, given how Congress drafts laws, there are parameters in there. So, we take direction from the president on down to try to figure out exactly how those laws are supposed to work at the level to make sure that we do the best that we can for the American people with regard to making sure that they get good healthcare and options on how they arrange their own healthcare themselves.
 * Acting HHS chief: Opioid epidemic is 'the crisis of our time' (December 4, 2017)


 * It's sort of root and branch, some of our agencies are taking. Every single regulation they have ever done, they are looking at it over and over again, and hopefully, sometimes it's gonna be cleaning things out. There are regulations that are no longer used, right? Does that have an effect? Maybe not, but at least it's some sort of process where we get rid of setting standards for things that don't even exist anymore. All of this allows us to redirect resources from this useless amount of compliance, the time we spend and they spend on dealing with this and redirect it to providing resources and care to where it should be directed. When you look at it, we say we're giving billions of dollars to a hospital; they may be able to hire more nurses or doctors or buy more drugs, be able to provide more charity care. They are gonna be able to liberate those resources and put them where they're supposed to go. It's a benefit on jobs as well.
 * Acting HHS chief: Opioid epidemic is 'the crisis of our time' (December 4, 2017)