More hope and change for the masses….
……Obama will on Wednesday use his ability to make recess appointments to name one of his more controversial nominees: Donald Berwick, nominee to be Administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).
The April nomination of Berwick — president and chief executive officer of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement — was in trouble and might not have been able to meet Senate confirmation due to comments Berwick made in the past about rationing health care.
In an interview last year with Biotechnology Healthcare, Berwick said society makes decisions about rationing all the time, and that the “decision is not whether or not we will ration care — the decision is whether we will ration with our eyes open. And right now, we are doing it blindly.”
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2010/07/president-obama-to-make-recess-appointment-of-cms-administrator-republicans-attacking-as-expert-on-r.html
Death panels, anyone?
He’s a big fan of the failed British NHS:
……“This recess appointment is an insult to the American people,” said Sen. John Barrasso (R., Wyo.), a physician and leading Berwick opponent. “Dr. Berwick is a self professed supporter of rationing health care, and he won’t even have to explain his views to the American people in a hearing. Once again, President Obama has made a mockery of his pledge to be accountable and transparent.” Berwick will have authority over an agency with the largest single budget in the entire U.S. government and over implementation of the most sweeping legislative overhaul of our health sector ever — without so much as a congressional hearing!
Berwick will run the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), giving him control of its $800 billion budget during the crucial months when thousands of pages of regulations will be written, determining how Obamacare will be run. The recess appointment lasts through the first session of the next Congress in 2011, after which Berwick will have to be renominated and would likely face even greater opposition, assuming Republicans make expected gains in the Senate.
The reason Berwick’s nomination was so highly controversial: numerous statements he has made professing his love for socialized medicine.
In speeches and articles celebrating the 60th anniversary of Britain’s National Health Service in 2008, Dr. Berwick said, “I am romantic about the NHS; I love it. All I need to do to rediscover the romance is to look at health care in my own country.” He not only loves it, he says it is “an example for the whole world — an example…that the United States needs now.”
http://www.nationalreview.com/critical-condition/230799/obama-appoints-his-rationer-chief/grace-marie-turner
He also wants wealth confiscation:
Any health care funding plan that is just equitable civilized and humane must, must redistribute wealth from the richer among us to the poorer and the less fortunate. Excellent health care is by definition redistributional.
http://www.newsrealblog.com/2010/05/13/obama-pick-donald-berwick-we-must-redistribute-wealth/
To all you cancer patients who voted for this socialist fuckwad: Good luck getting treatment under ObamaCare. You better hope he doesn’t take over life insurance, too.