“The President of the United States has his own health care rationing czar.”

Last week, President Obama recess appointed Dr. Donald Berwick to be the Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).

U.S. Senator John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) spoke about this issue on the Senate floor.  Excerpts of his remarks are below:

“Well, Mr. President, I will tell you that this recess appointment and the overall appointment of Dr. Donald Berwick is absolutely a page out of the playbook of the United States President of delay and obstruction.

“Last year I came to this floor and said, you know, we should have somebody in charge of Medicare and Medicaid.

“When this body is talking about cutting $500 billion from our seniors on Medicare, not to save Medicare but to start a whole new government program, there ought to be somebody in charge of Medicare in this country who can answer the questions what are the impacts going to be?

“But the President of the United States refused to name anyone. At a time when this body was debating how to handle 16 million more Americans jammed and crammed into Medicaid, a program where half the doctors in the country won’t see those patients, kind of like giving somebody a bus ticket when a bus isn’t coming.

“Those people may have coverage but they’re not able to get care. There should have been somebody in charge of Medicaid.

“So the playbook of delay and obstruction belongs to this Administration.

“The playbook of delay and obstruction is what led us here today to a situation where no one was even named to be in charge of Medicare and Medicaid for the United States until after an extremely unpopular and unwise health care bill was signed by the President of the United States.

“Then and only then did the President of the United States decide who he would want to put in charge of Medicare and Medicaid, and to me, Mr. President, this is an insult to the American people, an insult that the American people would never, ever have an opportunity of having open Congressional hearings to have explained to them the positions of this man nominated to head Medicare and Medicaid for this country.

“I think that the President of the United States has made a mockery, a mockery of his pledge to be accountable as an Administration, to be transparent as an Administration.

“I was surprised to see the members of the Democratic side of this Senate vote to kill the program of Medicare, Medicare Advantage for 10 million Americans. These are individuals who signed up for Medicare Advantage because there is an advantage.

“It actually helps with preventative medicine and it helps with coordinated care. That’s gone away.

“But yet, the President of the United States didn’t have anybody in charge of Medicare or Medicaid to explain what the impact of getting rid of Medicare Advantage would have on those 10 million people who needed coordinated care and needed preventative medicine.

“So then when I hear my colleague from Rhode Island say if you are against Dr. Berwick, then whose side are you on?

“I would say, Mr. President, that I’m on the side of the people of Wyoming, the seniors of this country, the people who are seeing $500 billion of Medicare cut from them to start a whole new government program, and they realize it’s not going to help them, and that’s why at town meetings and visits around the state of Wyoming, people believe that ultimately they are going to end up paying more for their care and are going to have less care available to them because of this very unpopular health care law.

“So here you have it.  We now have appointed without a hearing, without a debate, without this Senate having a chance to vote, a Director of Medicare and Medicaid who has expressed many opinions, many opinions, Mr. President, that really do fly in the face and are way out of line with the opinions of the American people.

“What is this Administration trying to hide? Why is this Administration unwilling to have hearings? Why is the Administration not allowing Dr. Berwick to come to Congress to explain to the American people his opinions and his views? All we know is what we have read, what we have seen from his speeches, the things that he has written.

“Well, likely, Mr. President, it’s because if those things were heard by the American people, this man may absolutely be un-confirmable.

“So if that’s what the President wants, then that’s what the President got because right now, Mr. President, I will tell you the President of the United States has his own health care rationing czar. You say how can you imagine that sort of thing?

“Well, let’s look at some of these quotes. These are from Dr. Berwick. ‘The decision is not whether or not we will ration care. The decision is whether we will ration with our eyes open.’

“This isn’t some long ago quote. This is last year, Mr. President.

“This is what he says about the British health care system. He says, ‘I fell in love with the national health service. To an American observer, the National Health Service is such a seductress.’ Who talks like that, Mr. President?

“We have a recess appointee who also went on, has some ideas about wealth in the United States. He said, ‘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 less fortunate.’

“So here we have a recess appointee making decisions, who will make decisions for hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars that impact the lives of the American people without ever having a Senate debate, without ever having a Senate hearing, without ever having one word of testimony because the President of the United States believes he knows better than the people of this country.”

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