HUH??? After Making Him Recess Appointment to Run Medicare, Obama Resubmits Berwick's Nomination to the Senate

Two weeks after Barak Obama stunned the country by making Donald Berwick a recess appointment for the job as the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services without a Senate Hearing, the President has decided to send his nomination to the Senate.

President Barack Obama still wants the U.S. Senate to confirm Donald Berwick as administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Sending the nomination to the Senate following the recess appointment is "simply a formality," said Reid Cherlin, an administration spokesman.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which oversee the two government programs that benefit more than 100 million poor, elderly and disabled Americans, haven't had a permanent administrator since October 2006.

Berwick, 63, previously was president and chief executive officer of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement and a professor at Harvard Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health.

The criticism of Berwick's original appointment surrounded remarks he made attacking private-sector solutions to health care problems, in support of “rationing with our eyes open”, and expressing his affection for the United Kingdom’s notoriously slow and rationing-plagued National Health Service as “romantic.”

“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.”

The decision to resubmit Berwick to the Senate is nothing short of shocking. It really makes one wonder what the President has up his sleeve. Fasten your seat belts and buy the large popcorn.