Outrageous Republican self serving and short sighted

The New York Times on Dr. Donald Berwick, the president’s nominee to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS): “Hospital executives who have worked with Dr. Berwick describe him as a visionary, inspiring leader. But a battle has erupted over his nomination, suggesting that Dr. Berwick faces a long uphill struggle to win Senate confirmation. Republicans are using the nomination to revive their arguments against the new health care law, which they see as a potent issue in this fall’s elections, and Dr. Berwick has given them plenty of ammunition. In two decades as a professor of health policy and as a prolific writer, he has spoken of the need to ration health care and cap spending and has confessed to a love affair with the British health care system.”

The Times notes that the position Berwick was nominated for “has been vacant since October 2006, and the need to fill it has become more pressing with passage of the new law. The agency must write and enforce dozens of regulations to expand Medicaid, trim Medicare and test new ways to deliver care. … Administration officials say they are confident that Dr. Berwick will be confirmed.” They also maintain that Republicans have taken his words out of context