White House Using Recess to Appoint Berwick as CMS Head

With Congress away from Washington, DC, this week for the July 4th break, the White House indicated Tuesday that it will use a recess appointment to put nominee Donald Berwick, MD, in as head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

The action is expected to bypass the political storm clouds that have been gathering in anticipation of the Senate confirmation hearings for Berwick, a pediatrician, Harvard University professor, and head of the nonprofit Institute for Healthcare Improvement in Cambridge, MA.

Berwick has received broad support nationwide from a variety of consumer, health, and trade groups such as AARP and the American Medical Association. However, numerous GOP members had been indicating in recent weeks that they would stall Berwick’s nomination and address problems they saw with new healthcare reform law passed in March.

With the agency “facing new responsibilities to protect seniors’ care” under the new healthcare reform law, it was felt “there’s no time to waste with Washington game playing,” says Dan Pfeiffer, the White House’s communications director in a White House blog Tuesday night.

Berwick’s “firsthand knowledge of the healthcare system” makes him “the right administrator to tackle the law’s requirements,” particularly as CMS works to “improve nursing home care, reduce unnecessary hospital readmissions, and expand coverage to millions of Americans who need it most,” Pfeiffer says.

The new healthcare reform act also attaches a Jan. 1, 2011, deadline to many of these priorities, “making steady, experienced leadership all the more critical,” Pfeiffer says. CMS has been without a permanent administrator since 2006.

However, in recent weeks, a number of GOP senators have pointed to Berwick’s comments pertaining to what they consider rationing healthcare and to his support of the socialized British healthcare system.

As if “shoving a trillion dollar government takeover of healthcare down the throat of a disapproving American public wasn’t enough,” the Obama Administration intends to “arrogantly circumvent the American people yet again by recess appointing one of the most prominent advocates of rationed healthcare to implement their national plan,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) in a statement on Tuesday.

“Dr. Berwick is a self-professed supporter of rationing healthcare, and he won’t even have to explain his views to the American people in a congressional hearing,” said Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY).

While recess appointments often stir up controversy, they are not that unusual. They were used by President Clinton 139 times and by President George W. Bush 171 times.