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Obama Selects Berwick To Run CMS |
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Obama
Selects Berwick To Run CMS
The White House made the recess appointment of Donald Berwick official
Wednesday, selecting him to lead the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid
Services and sidestepping a protracted battle on the Hill over his
nomination.
President Obama selected Harvard University professor Donald Berwick to
be the
administrator of CMS, and to oversee the massive regulatory overhaul of
the
nation’s health care system now that reform legislation has become law.
At
Harvard, Berwick advocated for improving health care quality and
efficiency and
also headed the Boston-based Institute for Healthcare Improvement.
Berwick is
the first permanent CMS administrator since Mark McClellan left the
agency in
2006 during President George W. Bush’s second term. Much attention will
be
focused on CMS over the coming months, notably by the long term provider
community, as the agency grapples with the first of many waves of rules
and
regulations needed to implement the nearly trillion dollar reform law
signed by
Obama this spring. CMS is part of the Department of Health and Human
Services
and is charged with an ever-widening mandate to administer the Medicare
and
Medicaid programs, which will both be dramatically altered in the coming
years.
Medicaid, for example, will add some 16 million people by 2020 under
current
planning.
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