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).”

Super Committee Braces For Failure, Preps For Fallout

Democrats and Republicans are gearing up for a political showdown following the seemingly inevitable collapse of super committee negotiations.

Though the 12-member panel technically has until Wednesday to reach an agreement on a deficit-reduction package, a potential deal must first be reviewed by the Congressional Budget Office and be made available to the committee for two days prior to a vote, making Monday the effective deadline.

Democratic and Republican members of the super committee took to the airwaves over the weekend to prepare the nation and Congress with an approaching truth; the bipartisan, bicameral unit has failed to reach an agreement.

“From the Democratic side, it was the same thing. Raise taxes, pass the presidnet’s jobs bill, no entitlement reform,” said Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) on NBC’s “Meet the Press. “On the Republican side, you had the one true breakthrough and that was this new concept of tax reform which could generate revenue from upper brackets.”

Democratic Sen. Xavier Becerra (Calif.) countered on “Fox News Sunday,” arguing that the concession made by Republicans on revenues was of little significance.

“Remember, we have 1,400 multimillionaires in this country who didn’t pay a single bit of income taxes in 2009. Why should they escape participation when we’re akin seniors to help cover the costs of deficits… that the didn’t even cause?” he said.

Aides close to the negotiations admit that, as unlikely as it may be, a last minute deal could still make its way to the CBO before the end of the day.

“I’m at the table,” said Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “I want to solve this. I know Americans want us to solve this. I remain hopeful that someone on the other side will say, this is too important to fail.”

Despite the potential for a last ditch effort to reach an agreement, partisan finger pointing has already begun within the 12-member panel as Democrats blame Republicans for digging their heels in the ground on taxes and Republicans have charged Democrats with being unwilling to put entitlements on the table.

“On the other side, there was an insistence that we have a trillion-dollar tax increase [and] and unwillingness to cut any kind of spending at all unless there was a huge tax increase,” said Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

If, in fact, the super committee does announce failure Monday, a series of automatic cuts would shed $1.2 trillion from the deficit over ten years which includes a big chunk from defense spending. Republicans will attempt to alter the required cuts so as to lessen the impact on the nation’s defense system, but according to reports, Democrats will block this move unless the GOP allows the Bush-era tax cuts to expire for the wealthiest Americans.

Lawmakers, Citizens Ask Super Committee To Wake Up

U.S. Senators Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), Ben Cardin (D-MD), and Rep Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) led an event on Thursday in which hundreds of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries gathered together to ask the Super Committee to “wake up” and take entitlement programs off the table.

“This country in fact does have a serious deficit problem but the reality is that the deficit was caused by two wars unpaid for, it was caused by huge tax breaks for the wealthiest people in the country, it was caused by a recession as a result of the greed, recklessness, and illegal behavior on Wall Street,” Sanders declared at the event.”If those are the causes of the deficit and the national debt, I will be damned if we will balance the budget on the backs of the elderly, the sick, the children and the poor. That’s wrong.”

Along with the lawmakers who called on the Super Committee to stay away from Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security cuts, community leaders related their personal stories and struggles and how Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid cuts would affect them.

“I want a country that rich people can care about people and not only about profits and that means not cutting Social Security, not cutting Medicare and not cutting Medicaid,” Vermont native Virginia Humphrey passionately stated before the crowd. “I want Congress to wake up.”

As the event ended audience members began to chant, “We are the 99%”  and revealed their plan to deliver alarm clocks to Super Committee members’ offices to symbolize their campaign for Congress to wake up.

PICO National Network led a group of around 50 individuals to Super Committee member Senator John Kerry’s (D-Mass.) office with alarm clocks ringing in their hands as they chanted “Hey Kerry, Wake Up.” 

The Super Committee’s deadline to cut $1.2 trillion from the nation’s budget by November 23 is fast approaching.

Cantor Says Sequester Won't Be Applicable Come Thanksgiving

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said Monday that there is no threat of a sequester as a result of failed negotiations by a 12-member panel tasked with cutting at least $1.2 trillion in savings by Nov. 23.  

“I don’t think a sequester will be applicable because I believe [the Joint Select Committee] will reach an agreement before the deadline,” Cantor told reporters during his weekly press conference.

Cantor tiptoed around an onslaught of questions focused on the deficit panel, saying that, having been a part of this summer’s Biden-led negotiations on raising the nation’s debt ceiling, he wanted to avoid adding pressure on the committee. 

“I want them to do their work without added pressure from me,” Cantor said.  

Although Cantor remains hopeful that a deal will be reached within the next 9 days, the substance coming from inside the “super committee” has indicated otherwise.  

The “breakthroughs” that resulted from Democratic concessions to slash entitlements and Republican proposals that put new revenues on the table were diminished before Congress broke for the holiday. 

Super Committee Stumbles Two Weeks Before Deadline

Despite an eventful week of trading offers within President Obama’s 12-member “supercommittee,” reported breakthroughs have since been downplayed, indicating that the bipartisan panel is stalling yet again with just two weeks before its Nov. 23 deadline. 

On Monday, Democrats proposed a plan that would cut $2.3 trillion from the nation’s deficit, including $1 trillion in hiked revenues. Republicans, for the first time, countered by reducing including revenues by lowering Democrats’ proposed figure to $300 billion.

Earlier in the week, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) applauded the proposal put forth by Republican panel members, saying that this was a great starting point. 

“I assume that what we heard from Republicans is a breakthrough that can lead to an agreement, and that’s what we need,” Durbin told reporters Wednesday. 

However, not all Democrats share Durbin’s sentiment and argue that the “breakthrough” was not a genuine attempt to reach a deal. 

Sens. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and John Kerry (D-Mass.), the remaining two Senate Democrats on the panel, say that the shift from Republicans only reflects minimal changes and do not “raise revenues in a significant way to bring us to a fair [and] balanced proposal.”

To make matters worse, Senate leadership continue to trade barbs over who’s to blame for the committee’s slowed progress. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) continues to point his finger at Grover Norquist, saying Republicans fear potential repercussions of acting contrary to his anti-tax pledge. Meanwhile, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has criticized Democrats and the White House for stalling in order to give the President a chance to run opposite a “do-nothing” Congress. 

Up to this point, the 12-member panel has shown flexibility with the two sacred cows that have been major factors in creating an impasse within the committee; entitlement programs and taxes. Lawmakers have indicated that, despite recent concession from both parties regarding these key issues, there continues to be a large gap that has stalled movement towards a final deal. 

“Republicans have put revenues on the table. Democrats have put entitlements on the table,” Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) said, according to the Associate Press. “They both need to more of each on the table.”