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).”

Senate GOP'er Says Healthcare Debate Flying Under The Radar

By Janie Amaya

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) said Tuesday at the Heritage Foundation that the individual mandate in the Affordable Care Act has flown under the radar as of late, and it’s benefitting Democrats.

Hatch suggested that the individual mandate, which he said requires individuals to purchase health insurance and punishes those who don’t, is being kept under the table by some members because skepticism is mounting over the provision’s constitutionality.

“Rather than defend the law, [lawmakers] have decided to lay low and grind their way to 2014,” Hatch said. “The impact of this law on the nation’s health care system has yet to be fully realized and the hope of the left is that by the time that Obamacare is fully operational, it will be too late to repeal it.”

Hatch argued that a plurality of Americans believe the infamous individual mandate violates the Constitution. The law has been heard by three apellate courts. The Atlanta-based 11th Circuit struck down the individual mandate, the 6th Circuit in Cincinnati ruled that the bill was, in fact, constitutional and the Richmond, Va.-based 4th Circuit tossed the case entirely.

“The Supreme court will get to decide whether forcing individuals to purchase health insurance is an appropriate use of powers to regulate interstate commerce or to tax and spend for the general welfare,” Hatch said.

ACLU, Heritage Foundation Weigh In On Supreme Court's Next Term

By Andrea Salazar

Health care reform and Arizona’s immigration law are expected to be two of the major issues the United States Supreme Court tackles during its fall 2011 term starting in October, and legal analysts representing both ends of the political spectrum are expecting victories for their sides.

The American Civil Liberties Union and the Heritage Foundation held dual events in Washington, D.C. Wednesday previewing the upcoming term.

Both organizations touched on the subject of ‘Obamacare’ and agreed that politics must have been involved in the decision to forgo appealing a lower court’s ruling deeming the health care reform law’s individual mandate unconstitutional.

However, Paul Clement, former U.S. solicitor general and partner at Bancroft PLLC, said the question of the mandate’s constitutionality is only the beginning.

“A lot of the focus has been on the individual mandate, but the individual mandate is the tip of the constitutional iceberg when it comes to this case,” he said, “Because you have the question of whether or not the individual mandate is constitutional, if the individual mandate is, in fact, not constitutional, then you have the question of what effect does that have on the rest of this remarkably long and remarkably multifarious statute.”

The ACLU has not officially released an position on the matter, but its legal director, Steven Shapiro, said the mandate falls under the commerce clause and is, therefore, constitutional.

As for Arizona’s immigration law, the constitutionality of which could impact “copycat” laws in states like Georgia, Alabama, Utah, Indiana and South Carolina, Clement says that the administration may face challenges trying to make its case.

“The burden’s on the federal government to explain why it is that immigration is sufficiently different from every other area of the law that a state can’t effectively try to enforce the federal substantive law,” Clement said.

The ACLU’s Omar Jadwat, however, argued that S.B. 1070 goes beyond a federal versus state issue but also has major civil rights implications.

“It’s reminiscent of Jim Crow laws,” Jadwat said, explaining that penalties for being unable to prove one’s legal status creates a system where “certain people are essentially not persons.”

Rulings on the cases the Supreme Court accepts are expected in late June.

Senate Candidate Joins Movement To Repeal Healthcare Law

Add Ovide Lamontagne to the list of candidates running for office this November who have taken a pledge to fight to repeal the healthcare reform law signed by President Barack Obama earlier this year.

“What was known is that [the law] would take over nearly one sixth of our economy and puts it in the hands of the command and control planners of the federal government,” said Lamontagne, who is running for the seat occupied by the outgoing Judd Gregg (R). “What was not known was just how incredibly complex and overwhelmingly bureaucratic Obamacare would be.”

Lamontagne, who will face U.S. Rep. Paul Hodes (D-N.H.) in this fall’s election, joins conservative Republicans Sharron Angle (Nev.), Ken Buck (Colo.), Marco Rubio (Fla.), Pat Toomey (Pa.), Mike Lee (Utah), Dino Rossi (Wash.) and Rand Paul (Ky.) as candidates who have vowed on record to reverse some, if not all parts of the law.

For some, their desire to repeal the law is rooted in its mandate on individuals to purchase health insurance by 2014 or risk facing punishment. According to Lamontagne, it’s the creation of added government to help carry out the law’s provisions.

“The legislation creates almost 160 new programs and bureaucracies…This is “progressive’ engineering at its worst.”

Additionally, Lamontagne says he is wary of newly appointed Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Director Donald Berwick.

“Mr. Berwick, known for his views promoting rationed medicine, will now act as a health care Czar, overseeing a massive shift of a significant part of our economy to the federal government.”

House Republican Laments Timing Behind Release Of CMS Report

A report authored by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) showing that healthcare costs will increase under a newly passed reform law should have been released before the law was passed, said Rep. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) during a phone interview with Talk Radio News Service on Wednesday.

"I think it's a shame that the report was released after the vote; clearly it was important," Cassidy said. "It was, if you will, a damning indictment [of the legislation]."

The 38-page analysis conducted by the chief actuary at CMS, Rick Foster, concludes that healthcare spending will represent 21% of the country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 2019. According to the report, that figure equals a 0.2% increase -- or $311 billion -- over the level that would be reached without reform in place.

During the nearly year-long debate over the legislation, the President frequently assured the public that his plan would bend the nation's healthcare cost curve down. But now, said Cassidy, Americans may start to lose faith in the administration's ability to be forthright.

"[The administration's] central premise was that they were going to lower costs," he said. "Now, integrity and faith in government are key things, trust in government is a key thing. If we're not gonna be able to trust them on this...what does that mean about other big policy decisions?"

Click here to listen to more of the Congressman's interview.