The Berwick Timeline

The White House and surrogates maintain that time was of the essence for Donald Berwick to start serving as Health Czar, and that left no choice but to make him a recess appointment -- no time for Congressional hearings and a vote in the Senate.

But consider this timeline:

• President Barack Obama took 495 days to nominate Berwick, and
• For the next 79 days, Democrats refused to hold a hearing for him.

Berwick: Let's Spread the Wealth Around!

The Obama administration's nominee for health Czar, Donald Berwick, sounds a lot like candidate Barack Obama when he met Joe the Plumber.

Berwick sees health care as a tool of redistribution. The Wall Street Journal notes,

Among Donald Berwick's greatest rhetorical hits is this one: ‘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 less fortunate.’

At least the guy is candid. That candor, however, is exactly why the Obama administration slipped him in as a recess appointee; they were scared of the hearings.

At least the administration is transparent about its cowardice.

Rand on Berwick

Rand Paul has circled back to the issue that catapulted the Tea Party: health care. Specifically, Paul is taking on the recess appointment of Donald Berwick as head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Control. Paul is aligned with the Republican Caucus -- even seizes upon the same Berwick quotes -- but true to form, Paul has more to say. I particularly like the format Paul uses at the end of his release to compare his positions to those of Jack Conway:

Earlier this year, President Obama and Nancy Pelosi conspired to ram through their national healthcare scheme, forcing Americans into a trillion dollar government-controlled system. Jack Conway, instead of joining with other Attorneys General to fight for Kentucky’s rights, instead embraced their government mandates.

Now, President Obama is making another extreme move in the realm of healthcare - and Jack Conway is nowhere to be found. So once again we ask, Where is Jack?

Here's just a taste of the extreme views of the new nominee to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Don Berwick:

"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."

And that’s just a start. Some other eye-popping stances from Don Berwick:

"The decision is not whether or not we will ration care - the decision is whether we will ration with our eyes open." June 2009

"I am romantic about the (British) National Health Service. I love it." He also called this socialized system an "example to the whole world."

This is the man who will be in charge of a system that spends nearly one TRILLION dollars a year on healthcare.

Of course these views match very well with those of President Obama, who said: "The chronically ill and those toward the end of their lives are accounting for potentially 80 percent of the total health care bill out here….There is going to have to be a very difficult democratic conversation that takes place."

President Obama can deny it all he wants - the fact is, he has pushed through a plan that leads to socialized medicine, rationed care and exploding spending and deficits. And now he is pushing forward his nominee to further those aims.

Our government has no business being in charge of health care. And it certainly has no business deciding who gets care and who doesn’t. Those systems have failed in other countries, and they will fail here if allowed to be implemented.

That’s why Rand Paul supports repeal of Obamacare, and would oppose the nomination of Don Berwick in the Senate. He is another nominee, another extremist who seeks to "redistribute" wealth and force tax increases to pay for "free" healthcare.

To make matters worse, this nominee is being placed into office by "recess appointment", a power given to the President to put someone in an office without Senate confirmation. Recess appointments have been used recently to put extremists in office who could never pass the constitutionally-required advise and consent of the Senate.

The Senate has not held a single hearing on this nominee. No questions have been asked. No reports given. No debate has taken place. Yet, President Obama has decided that the Republicans in the Senate would not pass the nomination. This is a typical spin from the White House, posture, bluster, blame, then sneak your plan through. Unfortunately for them, the facts are not on their side. This is simply an end-around the process, and should be condemned by both sides of the aisle.

Rand Paul	President Obama	Jack Conway
Opposed Obamacare	Obviously pushed Obamacare	Sided with Obama and against 65% of Kentuckians who oppose it
Opposes trillion dollars in new spending	Proposed trillion dollars in new spending	Supported trillion dollar new spending
Opposes government rationing	Appointed nominee who supports rationing	???
Opposes socialized medicine	Pushing country toward socialized medicine	???
Supports Repeal of Obamacare	Will fight against repeal	???
Opposes nominee to implement Obamacare	Appointed extremist nominee in favor of Rationing care and socialized medicine	???

This issue is current matter for the U.S. Senate. Once again, Rand Paul will take clear, full, principled stands so you’ll know what he’ll do as your next Senator. Where is Jack??

So This is Donald Berwick

Instead of going the recess appointment route -- slinking into office when Congress is out of session -- perhaps Donald Berwick should have asked Queen Elizabeth for a job when she was in New York yesterday.

After all, Berwick gets misty-eyed when he contemplates the marvels of the British National Health care System.

In 2008 at the London Science Museum in Berwick said: "I fell in love with the NHS . . . . To an American observer, the NHS is such a seductress."

In 2005, Berwick said "I think the NHS is one of the great human health care endeavors on earth. It can be an example for the whole world, an example I must say the United States needs now more than most countries do.

Yeah, the NHS is such a seductress if you want to get the wrong limb amputated, or if you don't mind waiting months to see a doctor after finding a lump in your breast.

I can see know why the Obama administration sought to avoid Congressional hearings on Berwick. So many questions to ask him . . . where to begin.

And notwithstanding the administration's latest spin, Republicans never blocked his nomination. To the contrary, as Jake Tapper notes, Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) requested a confirmation hearing for Berwick to take place two weeks ago. Republicans are eager for this hearing; it is Democrats who don't want to Berwick on the evening news so close to midterm elections.

That's why they chose to slip him in as a recess appointment. So much for transparency.

McConnell on Obama's Recess Appointment of Berwick

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell minced no words about the Obama administration's recess appointment of Donald Berwick to be Director of the Center of Medicare & Medicaid Services:

“As if shoving a trillion dollar government takeover of health care down the throat of a disapproving American public wasn't enough, apparently the Obama Administration intends to arrogantly circumvent the American people yet again by recess appointing one of the most prominent advocates of rationed health care to implement their national plan.

“Democrats haven't scheduled so much as a committee hearing for Donald Berwick but the mere possibility of allowing the American people the opportunity to hear what he intends to do with their health care is evidently reason enough for this Administration to sneak him through without public scrutiny.

“Just over three months after passage of this misguided law, with Americans' worst fears about it being realized every day, the fact that this Administration won't allow the man charged with implementing the President's plan to cut $500 billion out of Medicare to testify about his plans for the care of our nation's seniors is truly outrageous.”