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Peter Urbanowicz

Former Chief of Staff, Immediate Office of the Secretary

Eugene Peter Urbanowicz, Jr., who goes by Peter Urbanowicz, is an attorney who first worked at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) during the George W. Bush Administration. Prior to returning to HHS under Trump, he worked at a for-profit healthcare/hospital management company, then moved onto a consulting firm, where his portfolio largely consisted of turning around other large healthcare organizations.  

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HOW THEIR ROLE AFFECTS ACCESS TO REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH

Urbanowicz was hired as Alex Azar’s chief of staff as a “trusted hand” from the Bush Administration’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). He worked in this role until June 2019. From his position within the Immediate Office of the Secretary, Urbanowicz operationalized and worked in close proximity to the staff shaping anti-reproductive care rules and policy coming out of the agency. 

PREVIOUS EMPLOYMENT OF NOTE

Managing Director, Alvarez and Marsal, a professional services firm, 2009 – 2018

EVP and General Counsel, Tenet Healthcare, a hospital management company, 2004 – 2008

Deputy General Counsel, HHS, 2001 – 2003

TIES TO OTHER ANTI-CHOICE EXTREMISTS

Alex Azar:

Urbanowicz worked as deputy general counsel for former HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson in the early 2000s. In this role, Urbanowicz worked directly under Azar in the general counsel’s office. Azar believes life begins at conception; and Azar’s HHS has taken countless shots at reproductive rights and women’s access to healthcare. During his tenure, Azar has made it easier for anti-abortion groups to receive federal planning funds, grown a new office that protects medical providers that discriminate against patients who want reproductive healthcare and promoted and empowered anti-abortion ideologues as appointees installed to fundamentally change the programs they were charged with running.

Paula Stannard:

Urbanowicz worked with Stannard at Bush’s HHS. They have also coauthored an online debate for the conservative Federalist Society together about the limits of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Stannard, who is now a White House Senior Advisor and Senior Counsel to Azar, has worked to roll back the ACA’s birth control mandate and various anti-abortion initiatives. 

 

HIGHLIGHTS

Prior To Taking Chief Of Staff Job, Urbanowicz Gave An Interview Stating That The Trump Administration's Personnel Is Policy: 

"The personnel that a president puts into places in the executive branch...is the most important sign of what the president thinks...We have to look closely at the people that President-elect Trump is putting into these health policy positions." [January 2017, Alvarez & Marsal SoundCloud]

Urbanowicz Has Written For The Federalist Society That He Doesn’t Believe Access To Affordable Health Care Is A Right:

“I come down on the side of the view of Dr. Daniels. Making sure everyone has access to affordable health care is good, charitable, and morally right. But in our debate over health care, why should payment for health care be advanced to permanent legal right above other "noble and necessary preconditions of human existence" to use Dr. Daniel's phrase – "such as food, shelter and clothing – which are not guaranteed as rights." Dr. Daniels is a little more emphatic on the point: "[T]he universality of government health care in pursuance of the abstract right to it in Britain has not ensured equality … There is no right to healthcare – any more than there is a right to chicken Kiev every second Thursday of the month.” [Federalist Society, 9/18/09]

 

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