WH: Obama filling Medicare post, bypassing Senate

[ProSense]

Source: AP

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama intends to use the congressional recess to bypass the Senate and appoint Dr. Donald Berwick, an expert on patient care who's drawn fire from the GOP, to oversee Medicare and Medicaid, the White House announced late Tuesday.

The appointment was to be made Wednesday, with lawmakers out of town for their annual July Fourth break, White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer said in a post on the White House blog.

The decision means Berwick can assume the post of administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services without undergoing confirmation hearings in the Senate. Republicans have indicated they're prepared to oppose him over comments he's made on rationing of medical care and other matters. Democrats want to avoid a nasty confirmation fight that could reopen the health care debate. Berwick was nominated in April but no confirmation hearing had been scheduled.

"Many Republicans in Congress have made it clear in recent weeks that they were going to stall the nomination as long as they could, solely to score political points," Pfeiffer wrote. "But with the agency facing new responsibilities to protect seniors' care under the Affordable Care Act, there's no time to waste with Washington game-playing."


Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100707/ap_on_bi_ge/us_obama_health_care_appointment_4

[cbayer]

1. Dr. Berwick is, IMHO, the perfect person for this position and my personal mentor

and hero.

Go Don!!

:toast:

[Robbien]

10. IMO the right kind of groups endorse him, and the wrong kind don't

people endorsing him:

National Business Group on Health, the American Academy of Family Physicians, the A.F.L.-C.I.O. and Families USA.


people who don't like him:

health insurance companies
GOPers



Sounds to me like a good choice.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

11. From everything I've read he seems to be a good choice

Which explains why the Republicans were fighting to block his nomination.

It's good to see someone who knows him on a higher level agrees. I'm feeling even better about this appointment now.

[MadMaddie]

2. He should do it for all of the remaining positions that he

has nominated for positions. Enough is enough.

[tritsofme]

3. A 5 month maximum appointment, assuming the Senate doesn't eventually act on the nomination

For him and whoever else receives a recess appointment, it will expire along with this Congress.

He is a good man for taking this post and serving despite the uncertainty of his own future there beyond the first of the year.

[Name removed]

4. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[bjobotts]

5. Dems at least tried to be reasonable.Repubs only care for political gain

[bjobotts]

6. And if you think there's no difference just imagine a McCain/Palin administration now

[bjobotts]

7. "How's that oily spilly thing working our for ya?" "We are all BP now".

These are ridiculous people who have no place being in government but only a handful of dems are like this. There is a big difference between the parties.
There are better dems available but no better repubs as they are all hypocrites protecting the wealthy and their transnational corporations.

[alp227]

8. this'll only last a year though

"under the Constitution, his appointment will expire at the end of the next session of Congress, in late 2011. " {link:www.nytimes.com/2010/07/07/health/policy/07recess.html?partner=rss&emc=rss|NY Times])

So around that time you can expect the Republicans to play politics big time since the presidential election comes around the next year. Ads: "Obama picked this man bypassing the Senate! Abuse of presidential powers!" But hey haven't all presidents (at least since the 20th century) done that kinda stuff?

I'm reading the Wikipedia article about Dr Berwick, and this is why conservatives don't like him:

Berwick advocates cutting health costs by adopting some of the approaches of Great Britain’s National Health Services (NHS) and its National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE). NICE evaluates the costs and effectiveness of medical therapy that is covered by the NHS, as guidance for local authorities to decide what to cover. Mark McClellan, who served in the Bush administration, also advocated adopting some of NICE's methods.<11>

Conservative American critics claim, "NICE decides which healthcare people will get and which they won’t."<12> Philip Klein in The American Spectator dubbed him “Obama’s Rationing Man.”<13> The chairman of NICE called these statements "outrageous lies."<14>

[truthisfreedom]

9. He should recess-appoint people to fill every damned missing seat in the whole government.

Give 'em a taste of their own medicine. Bush did it plenty. He'd made 15 of them by this point in his pResidency.

[JoeyT]

12. Good for him.

This guy seem to be a pretty good choice to fill the position. Probably why the GOOP is fighting him so hard.
Rock on dude.

[superconnected]

13. I'm for this. I have to admit as mad as I get at Obama he does keep doing things that are good that

we'd never get under a republican president. So, there is a difference after all.

[w4rma]

14. Agreed! (nt)

[Scurrilous]

15. K & R

:thumbsup: