http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/70074
“Rep. Pence: Medicare Chief Berwick ‘Not Entitled to That Job,’ Must Explain Praise for UK ‘Socialist Health Care System’”
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
By Adam Cassandra
SNIPPET: “Washington (CNSNews.com) – Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) says he is concerned about the prospect of health care rationing following the recess appointment of Dr. Donald Berwick to serve as the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicare Services.
Pence, speaking Tuesday at a Congressional Health Caucus event, said Berwick was “not entitled to that job” and should have had a confirmation hearing.
“I think an appointment of such magnitude, at a time of enormous public debate, as a recess appointment was wrong,” Pence told CNSNews.com. “I think it was wrong for the president to bypass the confirmation process at a time when the American people are so focused on legislation where the ink is barely dry.
“I also believe, as a part of those confirmation hearings, Dr. Berwick would certainly have an opportunity to explain why he referred to the British socialist health care system as ‘a global treasure,’” said Pence.”
Quote:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2561407/posts
America’s New Health Care Zookeeper
IBD Editorials ^ | July 29, 2010 | SALLY C. PIPES
Posted on July 29, 2010 4:51:59 PM PDT by Kaslin
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 move “positively dictatorial.”
First among those who are shocked by the president’s dictatorial move must be Berwick himself. “I wonder if I am less effective for having been radicalized,” he said in 2004. “I can no longer take moderation.”
The self-described radical will have the opportunity to be effective as head of CMS. This bureaucratic organization is the largest single player in American health care, spending 4% of the nation’s economy and setting the terms under which seniors and low-income Americans receive health care.
Berwick’s task under the new health reform law will be to take from Medicare, the program for seniors, and give to Medicaid, the program for low-income Americans.
In a sense, he’s the right man for the job. A Harvard-trained doctor and policy advocate, he spent a few years treating children in a Boston HMO, and he spent many more proselytizing through his multimillion-dollar Institute for Healthcare Improvement on how the American health care system should be retooled to focus on quality, patient service and cost control.
(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...