Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Non-Transparency During Sunshine Week

During his opening remarks at the Finance Committee hearing this morning, Senator Hatch referred to the letter he and Senator Enzi wrote to Secretary Sebelius calling for more openness in the Department’s dealings regarding health care reform.  Among the excerpts:

We remain disappointed that many of our requests for information are not receiving timely responses.  Your Department has failed to schedule regular briefings with the Committees of jurisdiction regarding ongoing implementation activities.  While the Department frequently makes HHS senior staff available to brief the media on new Administration regulations and reports, the Department has ignored multiple requests for Congressional briefings on the same topic.  The Department has also failed to provide any responses to Member questions that were submitted for the record at both HELP and Finance Committee hearings that were held in January and February.

As a reminder, President Obama promised “an unmatched level of transparency, participation, and accountability across the entire Administration.”  The Enzi-Hatch letter to the Secretary asks for a return to the President’s promises, as opposed to current practice, which some might argue resembles “government by press release.”