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If and when a new Congress comes in, the fastest way to eliminate Obamacare will be by shutting down its "operating system" the Centers for Medicare and Medicare Services and investigating its unconfirmed director, Donald Berwick. And it should start by pulling the plug on Berwick's Triple Aim Program and the billions of dollars he has for implementing it. The Triple Aim Program (TAP) focuses on "improving the patient experience, improving population health and lowering per capita health care costs." Berwick claims that all three are achievable not through consumer driven healthcare. In various speeches and slide presentations, Berwick claims...

(CNSNews.com) – A coalition of health care groups is urging Congress to withhold money for implementing the new health care law as a means of forcing the controversial new Medicare chief – who bypassed the Senate confirmation process through a recess appointment – to at least answer questions from members of the coalition.Marking three months since President Barack Obama recess-appointed Dr. Donald Berwick to be administrator of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), six groups sent a letter to members of Congress about Berwick, who has openly advocated the rationing of health care and argued that “humane”...

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 intensive care" and "cancer care." It's been three months now since his recess appointment, and still no word from the new CMS director. In fact, Berwick hasn't granted any interviews, refuses to testify before...

The Berwick ChroniclesBerwick Pretends to Change Spots on RationingObama resubmitted his pick to run the Medicare and Medicaid programs to the Senate on Monday, two months after bypassing the body with a recess appointment- Donald BerwickBerwick-Linked Advocacy Group Spearheaded ‘Torture’ Campaign against American Officials- Obama has appointed Donald Berwick, a board member of Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), to head Medicare. While participating in an EU-funded project on “documenting” torture charges, PHR took aim at America.Democrats Refuse to Hold Medicare Rationing Czar Hearing; Won't discuss BerwickBerwick battle escalates: GOP introduces resolution calling recess appointment ‘abuse of power’Obama, without fanfare, submitted...

Medicine: After the recess appointment of a Medicare and Medicaid head, an FDA panel drops its endorsement of a widely used cancer drug. Another FDA-approved cancer therapy may not be paid for. It begins. It didn't take long for the health care philosophy of Dr. Donald Berwick, President Obama's choice to head the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services, and an appointee we have labeled a "one-man death panel," to have an effect. Berwick is an admirer of Britain's National Health Service and its National Institute for Clinical Excellence, with the Orwellian-acronym NICE. "NICE," Berwick has said, "is extremely effective...

Just days after the recess appointment of Donald Berwick, the controversial new head of Medicare and Medicaid, the Ovarian Cancer National Alliance posted the following grim news: for the first time in history, an FDA-approved anti-cancer therapy may not be covered by Medicare.

American seniors take note: There's a new bureaucrat in charge of your health care. Perhaps zookeeper is a more appropriate title, as the newly appointed but never-to-be confirmed head of Obama's Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) likes to refer to the U.S. health care payment system as a zoo. If you haven't heard of Dr. Donald Berwick, that's because President Obama and his Capitol Hill Democratic colleagues don't want you to have this information. After leaving the post vacant, Obama snuck him in on Independence Day weekend with a recess appointment. A Washington Post columnist admiringly called the...

Washington (CNSNews.com) – At a press conference on Wednesday, Senators Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) and Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) indicated they were open to filibustering any and all legislation by Republicans in the Senate until a confirmation hearing is held for Dr. Donald Berwick, who was recently recess-appointed by President Obama to head the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Dr. Berwick is controversial because he supports rationing health care services, has said a “just” health care funding plan “must redistribute wealth,” and has praised Britain’s government-run National Health Service. President Obama nominated Berwick back in April and then recess-appointed him on...

THE BRIEFING ROOM • THE BLOG THE BLOG TUESDAY, AUGUST 4TH, 2009 AT 6:55 AM Facts Are Stubborn Things Posted by Macon Phillips Opponents of health insurance reform may find the truth a little inconvenient, but as our second president famously said, "facts are stubborn things." Scary chain emails and videos are starting to percolate on the internet, breathlessly claiming, for example, to "uncover" the truth about the President’s health insurance reform positions. In this video, Linda Douglass, the communications director for the White House’s Health Reform Office, addresses one example that makes it look like the President intends to...

Complete title: Britain’s National Health Service, Praised by Obama’s Medicare Chief, To Undergo Cost-Cutting Overhaul (CNSNews.com) – Britain’s National Health Service (NHS), which rations basic health care services to control costs, will undergo major budget cuts and restructuring ostensibly to make the government-run system less bureaucratic and more decentralized, according to detailed news reports over the weekend from the United Kingdom.  Dr. Donald Berwick, who was recently given a recess-appointment by President Barack Obama to run the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in America, has praised Britain’s National Health Service, saying he loves the single-payer system.  In a July...

How does Dr. Berwick hope to control the billions of decisions made by practicing physicians every day? Daniel Henniger, in his Wonder Land column, has some revealing, and frightening, quotations: “The unaided human mind, and the acts of the individual, cannot assure excellence. Health care is a system, and its performance is a systemic property.” “I would place a commitment to excellence standardization to the best-known method above clinician autonomy as a rule for care.” “Young doctors and nurses should emerge from training understanding the values of standardization and the risks of too great an emphasis on individual autonomy.” The...

Barack Obama's incredible "recess appointment" of Dr. Donald Berwick to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is probably the most significant domestic-policy personnel decision in a generation. It is more important to the direction of the country than Elena Kagan's nomination to the Supreme Court. The court's decisions are subject to the tempering influence of nine competing minds. Dr. Berwick would direct an agency that has a budget bigger than the Pentagon. Decisions by the CMS shape American medicine. Dr. Berwick's ideas on the design and purpose of the U.S. system of medicine aren't merely about "change."...

Kansas Republican Sen. Pat Roberts has just introduced an amendment calling for the Senate to declare the recess appointment of Medicare and Medicaid chief Donald Berwick “an abuse of power.” The nonbinding “sense of the Senate” resolution also calls on Berwick to appear before the Senate Finance Committee to answer questions. The measure is designed to send a message to the White House that Republicans remain angry about President Obama’s decision to short-circuit the confirmation process, before a hearing was held for Berwick, and put Berwick in the job by recess appointment. The president blamed the GOP for its potential,...

The Economist wants to ease Americans’ concerns about Donald Berwick’s recess appointment : “Every health system rations in some way or other; the demand for health care is always greater than the resources available. The question is whether rationing is done openly and as sensibly as possible—or done implicitly, through murky pricing, bureaucratic fiat or denial of care. “Even Paul Ryan, a leading Republican congressman, has acknowledged this. ‘Rationing happens today! The question is who will do it? The government? Or you, your doctor and your family?’ he asks. The most objectionable aspect of Dr Berwick’s recess appointment is that...

I’m honestly shocked. Wasn’t the whole point of the recess appointment to avoid questions in a high-profile forum about Berwick’s fondness for NHS’s rationing authority and his views of health care as redistribution? Now, suddenly, Obama’s going to force Reid and company to deal with the Berwick headache three and a half months from the midterms? What possible logic could there be? Obama’s effort to clear Berwick through the Senate on top of his recess appointment would grant his nominee the job indefinitely, as he would serve at “the pleasure of the president,” according to a White House aide. The...

The ominous manifestation of "hope" and "change." We live in an age when the secretary of the Interior and the White House press secretary proudly and publicly proclaim that they will keep their "boot on the neck" of an oil company. This new manifestation of "hope" and "change" is ominous at a time when the government is rapidly escalating its involvement and control of all aspects of American society. That is especially true in the health care arena, but anyone with a neck should be concerned. If you have been wondering how the health care legislation enacted this year will...

Barack Obama's incredible "recess appointment" of Dr. Donald Berwick to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is probably the most significant domestic-policy personnel decision in a generation. It is more important to the direction of the country than Elena Kagan's nomination to the Supreme Court.

If you aren't a Wall Street Journal subscriber, you should be so you can read Daniel Henniger's column on today's edition. Trust me, this column alone is worth the price of a subscription because it highlights two things - just how truly radical is President Obama's recess appointment of Dr. Donald Berwick and what the GOP must do in response if voters return them to the House majority in November. First, Berwick truly is the disciple of centralized planning. Read these quotes from the guy, which Henninger included in his column today, and the conclusion is inescapable - Berwick loves...

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs spent a lot of time at a briefing earlier this week claiming that Donald Berwick was given a recess appointment to head Medicare and Medicaid because they didn't want to wait "months and months and months" for a confirmation vote . Gibbs responded to reporter queries about wanting to avoid confirmation hearings with a flat denial. We would have welcomed the hearings, Gibbs claimed, but we didn't want the delay in getting him confirmed. Gibbs' reasoning is looking even shabbier today than it did way back yesterday. Why? Because according to this piece by...