Not exactly: the Politico reports that, in wake of forty-two Senators sending a letter indicating that Sir Donald Berwick is simply unacceptable for the job of Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) head*, Senate Democrats have made an answer to that by… giving up trying to get Berwick nominated. There’ll be no fight, no confirmation hearing, no standing on what the Democrats consider ‘principle.’ | Read More »
In May, Health Care News discovered video footage of President Obama’s “redistributional” nominee to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Donald Berwick, describing his health care views to an audience in Great Britain. We reported on the story, noting at the time that Berwick’s nomination had attracted “relatively little attention” thus far, and that it deserved more. The footage showed Berwick detailing his | Read More »
Donald Berwick, temporary Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), will testify tomorrow before the Senate Finance Committee. This will be the first opportunity for Senators to question this controversial figure. President Obama used his power of the recess appointment to place Berwick into the CMS position without action by the United States Senate. This will be a great opportunity for members | Read More »
Conservative leaders, including yours truly, delivered a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid today, urging him “in the strongest possible terms not to use the ‘lame duck’ session to force votes on the confirmation of any nominees for federal office.” The letter emphasizes that many of the nominees that might be confirmed during the lame duck session “are still before the Senate precisely because | Read More »
After Donald Berwick’s controversial recess appointment to head the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), his allies claimed that he was preparing a “point-by-point” rebuttal to his critics. Berwick does have a lot of explaining to do, after all. He’s publically romanticized Britain’s government-run healthcare and is on the record arguing that most cities should ration the “number of centers engaging” in “cardiac surgery,” “neonatal | Read More »
[UPDATE]: Ben Domenech over at the New Ledger calls this a “formality.” Roll Call reports: President Barack Obama sent the Senate his nomination of Donald Berwick as administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on Monday — a move that comes two weeks after Obama bypassed Congress to put his stalled nominee in the post until the end of 2011. Via Senatus: background | Read More »
I may need to walk back on my scorn of Rep. Jackson-Lee’s praise of the non-existent relationship between the non-existent nations of North and South Vietnam. If this video below is any indication, then there’s a fairly nasty virus going around Capitol Hill that turns Democratic legislators into memory-impaired, babbling zombies. Yes, even worse than usual. Yes, you remember correctly: in point of fact Donald | Read More »
The White House’s announcement today that they will bypass the nomination process of the United States Senate to recess appoint Donald Berwick as head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is an act of unconscionable hubris. The White House claims this act is in response to “Washington game-playing”, accusing Republicans of planning to “stall the nomination” as long as possible. This is | Read More »
While Congress is on recess, Barack Obama will appoint Donald Berwick to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services or “CMS”. Presidents tend to appoint controversial nominees with recess appointments because they otherwise can’t get the votes. Barack Obama has appointed a number of extremely controversial people via recess appointment when he otherwise hasn’t had the opportunity to name them czars — positions that | Read More »
Witness this map. It’s called the Dartmouth map, and as the New York Times and Hot Air notes, it was used by the Obama administration to argue that there were existing inefficiencies in the Medicare system that could be trimmed away, thus permitting a scenario where Medicare funding could be cut significantly while not sacrificing care (indeed, the map’s creators argue that it demonstrates that | Read More »
Sounds like a fun way to spend the summer, doesn’t it? President Barack Obama spent the last year insisting he doesn’t want to turn the American health care system into a carbon copy of the government-run British system. But Obama’s pick to run Medicaid and Medicare — Donald Berwick — is a pediatrician and Harvard University professor with a self-professed “love” of the British system. | Read More »
“Any health care funding plan that is just equitable civilized and humane must, must redistribute wealth from the richer among us to the poorer and the less fortunate. Excellent health care is by definition redistributional.” – Donald Berwick President Obama’s nomination of Donald Berwick as the head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is a gathering far less attention than a certain | Read More »
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