By Dave Andrusko

It would be hard to top Sen. Orrin Hatch's response to news that the Obama Administration is re-nominating the ultra-controversial Dr. Don Berwick to head the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Daniel Henninger discusses President Obama's incredible "recess appointment" of Dr. Donald Berwick to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).

Hatch (R-Utah) told POLITICO, "A day after the president committed to coming together to move our country forward, he's chosen to re-nominate one of his most contentious nominees to head an agency that impacts the lives of more than 100 million Americans."

Hatch, the ranking member on the Senate Finance Committee, added, "Given Dr. Berwick's controversial views, Republicans will expect a full hearing to understand how the administration is implementing the $2.6 trillion health law, its impact on the American people, and the consequences to future of Medicare and Medicaid."

Last July President Obama skirted a barrage of questions for Berwick (whom NRLC labeled a "one-man death panel") by making a recess appointment, which simply meant Berwick avoided facint public scrutiny by the Senate.

Making Berwick even more important is that his already hefty portfolio has been expanded.

In addition to administering the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services and having oversight of the Medicare and Medicaid programs, "He was also recently given authority over the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight, which will implement much of the health care reform law," POLITICO's Jennifer Haberkorn wrote. "The agency was previously housed in a different part of HHS."

If you go to http://www.nrlc.org/NewsToday/BerwickLionsDen.html , and http://www.nrlc.org/NewsToday/BerwickAppointment.html you'll get the flavor of why NRLC so adamantly opposed his nomination. Suffice it to say

*In a June 2009 interview with the journal Biotechnology Healthcare, Berwick said, "The decision is not whether or not we will ration care – the decision is whether we will ration with our eyes open."

* He is an enthusiastic supporter of Britain's National Health Service and its National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE), the agency charged with determining which medical advances will – and which will not – be made available to the British public.

* In an article in the May/June 2008 issue of Health Affairs, he called for "rational collective action overriding some individual self-interest" so as to "reduce per capita costs." Lamenting that "[t]oday's individual health care processes are designed to respond to the acute needs of individual patients," Berwick wrote that instead government should "approach new technologies and capital investments with skepticism and require that a strong burden of proof of value lie with the proponent."

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