Obama Dodges Congress And The People Again

Barack Obama has once again demonstrated his complete disdain for Congress, the Constitution and the American people with a recess appointment for which there can be no reasonable explanation. Recess appointments in the face of strong opposition from the minority party are not unusual nor are they unprecedented. In fact, the liberals are pointing to George Bush's recess appointment of John Bolton to the UN ambassadorship as an example. There is no comparison.

Presidents are known for making recess appointments when their chosen nominee has been vetted by the Senate and turned down or not confirmed by stalling tactics. And so it was with Bolton. Frustrated with the Senate's refusal to confirm Bolton without sound reasons, Bush made the recess appointment. Bolton wasn't pretty enough for the Democrats for starters. More importantly, he was highly critical of the UN's bad habit of wasting billions of dollars on failed projects and thieving officials. His outspoken criticism of the UN's open obeisance to dictatorships and human rights violators cost him support from the party of appeasement. Democrats love the UN because it works so hard to destroy American sovereignty.

In addition, though the United States spends ungodly amounts of money at the UN, the ambassadorship is really not much more than a pulpit for the ambassador to enunciate the policies of the President. Other than threatening to withhold funds, the American ambassador can't do much more damage individually than the ambassador from Zimbabwe or Burqina Fasso. But the UN ambassador doesn't set US policy, nor does he or she have vast power over major segments of the American economy.

Obama, on the other hand, made a recess appointment of leftist Donald Berwick as Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services ("CMS"). Unlike Bolton's case, Berwick has never been vetted, nor have there been any hearings on his qualifications since the President announced Berwick's nomination. Unlike Bolton's UN, CMS has immense power over a segment of government which affects every single American and has a budget considerably larger than that of the Defense Department. And unlike Bolton's outspoken and public persona, practically nobody outside the confines of the halls of the left had ever heard of Donald Berwick.

Obama wasn't reacting to huge political criticisms of Berwick coming from the opposition party, nor was he trumping a recalcitrant Senate Committee that wouldn't give Berwick a fair hearing. The best that can be said for this recess appointment is that Obama didn't want the public to know the kind of person he would nominate to control much of the health care system. In addition, since there was little public knowledge of the nominee, it is rather apparent that Obama didn't want to embarrass his nominee by having him appear in front of a Senate Committee to answer hard questions about his utilitarian socialist agenda.

Rather than bravely stand up to a Senate which might oppose his nominee, the sneaky and dishonest President simply ignored the process entirely, and installed his boy without any Constitutional provision to back him or thwart him. Two of Berwick's stands on medical care are real beauties, and Obama couldn't risk that getting out before Berwick already held the position of administrator. The first is Berwick's sick and fawning admiration for the miserable failure that is the British National Health Service. The other is his bold advocacy of statistical and fiscal analyses of how much health care any American is entitled to ("rationing health care").

Berwick's admiration for the British NHS sounds more like a schoolgirl crush on the captain of the football team than the reasoned conclusions of a high-level government official. Says Berwick about the NHS: "I am romantic about the National Health Service; I love it. All I need to rediscover the romance is to look at health care in my own country." And if that doesn't turn your stomach sufficiently, consider his view on the British National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, which makes life and death decisions about NHS patients. He enthusiastically applauds the British concept that "the decision is not whether or not we will ration care; the decision is whether we will ration with our eyes open."

What you mean "we," paleface? That "we" includes the vast majority of Americans, but not the elites such as Congress and, oh, the former CEO of the Institute for Health Care Improvement, one Donald Berwick. Although the IHI is ostensibly a not-for-profit organization, it was able to take in enough cash to pay Berwick $2.3 million dollars in his final full year as CEO, and at the same time write him a lifetime health care plan that even Bill Gates couldn't afford. It's rationing for us, and spare-no-expense for Berwick. "We're all going to suffer through this together, aren't you?" is Berwick's position.

In June of last year, Berwick was interviewed by a specialty magazine called Biotechnology Healthcare. His major thesis for the magazine was "Well, at this point, to have access to a particular additional benefit such as a new drug or medical intervention is so expensive that our taxpayers have better use for those funds. We make those decisions all the time." That was the lead up to his comment about rationing "with our eyes open."

While the mere peasants are treated to the vicissitudes of the miserable Medicare program that has recently gotten even worse after major funding cuts, Berwick and his family won't have to give it a moment's thought. They're covered for everything, literally, and then some. Yet Obama thought that a man so divorced from the daily lives of normal Americans was such an important nominee that he wouldn't even subject him to minimal investigation or Senate hearings.

In fact, it wasn't just those pesky fascist Republicans that Obama was worried about. His socialist agenda and lack of concern for the lives of average Americans has shaken even some of his former Democratic hangers-on. Sen Max Baucus (D-Montana) said "I'm troubled that, rather than going through the standard nomination process, Dr. Berwick was recess-appointed. Senate confirmation of presidential appointees is an essential process prescribed by the Constitution that serves as a check on executive power and protects Montanans and all Americansby ensuring that crucial questions are asked of the nominee--and answered." Even Baucus, who stumped for Obamacare in his home state, can see that his President is dodging the normal process for nefarious reasons.

Obama's genius press secretary danced all around the issue, neither explaining the reasons for the failure to hold hearings nor giving any indication that he saw any reason for holding hearings at all. After all, the President wanted Berwick for the job--isn't that good enough? Asked by CNS News "did the President ever ask chairman Baucus for a hearing?" Gibbs answered, "Not that I'm aware." Gibbs then babbled on about the importance of moving forward quickly on all health care fronts (before the people get any more pissed off?). Those contentious Senate hearings would have slowed the process down, and we can't have that.

Senator John Barasso (R-Wyoming) is one of two doctors serving in the United States Senate. He looked at the rationing argument and the immense power, prestige and wealth of the CMS, and concluded: "Medicare and Medicaid are going to disburse over $800 billion in benefits this year. It is larger than the economies of many nations. This is a position that deserved a hearing. This is a position that deserved a vote."