WASHINGTON — The point man for carrying out President Barack Obama’s health care law will be stepping down after Republicans succeeded in blocking his confirmation by the Senate, the White House announced Wednesday.
Medicare chief Don Berwick, a Harvard professor widely respected for his ideas on how to improve the health care system, became the most prominent casualty of the political wars over a health care overhaul whose constitutionality will be decided by the Supreme Court.
Praising Berwick for “outstanding work,” White House deputy press secretary Jamie Smith criticized Republicans for “putting political interests above the best interests of the American people.”
Berwick will be replaced by his principal deputy, Marilyn Tavenner, formerly Virginia’s top health care official. The White House said Obama will submit Tavenner’s nomination to the Senate.
Tavenner has been at Medicare since early last year, earning a reputation as a problem- solver with years of real-world experience and an extensive network of industry contacts. A nurse by training, the 60-year-old Tavenner worked her way up to the senior executive ranks of a major hospital chain. She ran Virginia’s health department under former Democratic Gov. Tim Kaine.
Berwick’s fate was sealed early this year when 42 GOP senators — more than enough to derail his confirmation — asked Obama to withdraw his nomination. His resignation takes effect Dec. 2.
Berwick’s statements as an academic praising Britain’s government-run health care had become a source of controversy in politically polarized Washington. Although he later told Congress that “the American system needs its own solution” and Britain’s shouldn’t be copied here, his critics were not swayed.
Berwick oversaw the drafting and rollout of major regulations that will begin to reshape the health care system, steering Medicare away from paying for sheer volume of services and procedures and instead putting a premium on quality care that keeps patients healthier and avoids costly hospitalizations.
