White House Taps Tavenner As CMS Chief, Berwick Steps Down

President Barack Obama said Wednesday that he plans to announce a new head for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) following months of Republican outcry over appointed head Donald Berwick, who plans to step down Friday, Dec. 2.

Obama sidestepped the traditional nomination process in July 2010 to make a recess appointment of Berwick after failing three times to get him confirmed through the Senate. Additionally, 42 Republican senators signed a letter to the White House in March requesting that President Obama withdraw Berwick’s nomination.  Berwick’s departure should be expected considering his recess appointment limited his tenure atop CMS to the year’s end. 

“Our work has been challenging, and the journey is not complete, but we are now well on our way to achieving a whole new level of security and quality for health care in America, helping not just the millions of Americans affected directly by our programs, but truly health care as a whole in our nation,” Berwick said in a letter to colleagues at CMS.

Marilyn B. Tavenner will now serve as interim administrator while she awaits Senate confirmation, a process that is expected to go unscathed. 

Tavenner has served as principal deputy adminstrator for CMS since February 2010 and briefly served as the acting administrator from February to July 2010. 

“Before entering government service,” the administration said in a statement announcing her nomination, “Ms. Tavenner spent nearly 35 years working with healthcare providers in significantly increasing levels of responsibility, including almost 20 years in nursing, 3 years as a hospital CEO and 10 years in various senior executive level positions for Hospital Corporation of America (HCA).”

Health Spending Growth Rate Hit All-Time Low In 2008

National health spending grew 4.4% to reach a total of $2.3 trillion in 2008, according to new data released by officials with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).

However, compared to 2007, when the growth rate for health spending was 6%, the figure for 2008 was significantly lower. CMS officials attributed the slow down to after-effects of the struggling economy.

“During periods of recession we often see healthcare spending to be somewhat insulated from the impacts of that recession...but in 2008 we saw...a more immediate impact on the healthcare spending trend...most likely due to the fact that this recession is one of the most severe that we’ve seen since 1933,” said CMS statistician Micah Hartman.

In 2008, while state health spending decreased noticeably, federal health spending accounted for over one-third of total U.S. health spending, caused mainly by an 8.6% growth in Medicare. In addition, federal Medicaid spending grew 8.4%, sparked by a 2.6% increase in enrollment. These occurances were likely aided by passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which allowed billions in health spending to be shifted from states to the federal government.

Due to a decline in private health insurance enrollment, the growth rate of private health spending slowed to 2.6% in 2008. Private health insurance plans lost roughly one million enrollees as a result of income and job loss. This in turn, sparked a slow down in the growth rate of private health premiums, which fell from 4.4% in 2007 to 3.1% in 2008.

Prescription drug spending also experienced a drop in growth, going from 4.5% in 2007 to 3.2% in 2008. Aside from the recession, cheaper generic drug prices offered by retailers such as Walmart contributed to the decline.

New HHS Report Gives GOP Ammo To Blast Senate Healthcare Bill

By Travis Martinez - University of New Mexico/Talk Radio News Service

A new report issued by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has revealed that the Democratically-backed Senate health care bill would have a negative impact on the cost, accessibility and quality of the American health care system, according to Sen. Mike Johannns (R-Neb.).

“This is a roundhouse blow to the Senate health care bill,” said Johanns in a news conference Friday.

In response to a letter written by Johanns and other Republicans, Richard Foster, the Chief Actuary at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, a branch of HHS, released a report which found that under the bill, the proposed reductions in Medicare payment updates for providers, the actions of the Independent Medicare Advisory Board and the excise tax on high-cost employer-sponsored health insurance would have significant downward impacts on future health care cost growth rates.

Johanns said that the White House has misleadingly used the report to garner support for the bill when in fact, he said, the report should be viewed as being damaging to the chances that legislation will pass.

Johanns read a key section of the report which states the following: “During 2010-2019, however, these effects would be outweighed by the increased costs associated with the expansions of health insurance coverage. Also, the longer-term viability of the Medicare update reductions is doubtful. Other provisions, such as comparative effectiveness research, are estimated to have relatively small effect on expenditure growth rates.”

Linda Douglass, Communications Director for the White House's Office of Health Reform, responded to Johanns' remarks on Friday, posting the following statement in defense of the bill to the White House's website: "They cherry-picked total expenditures at a singular, fixed point in time – ignoring the overall rate of cost growth, the impact on Medicare and America’s seniors, and the fact that millions of more Americans will be covered."