New Medicare boss

last updated 8 January 2015

President Obama this week took advantage of Congress’ July 4 recess to appoint Dr. Donald Berwick to oversee the Medicare and Medicaid programs. Berwick, a Harvard Medical School professor, will direct the massive entitlement programs and play a key role in implementing health-care reform. Obama made the recess appointment to avoid reopening the bitter debate that preceded the health-care law’s passage. The post has been vacant since 2006.

Republicans assailed the appointment, zeroing in on Berwick’s earlier praise for Britain’s single-payer health-care system. Sen. John Barrasso called Berwick “a self-professed supporter of rationing health care.”