Democrats Afraid of Obamacare’s Shadow
Politico reported late last week that Finance Committee Chairman Baucus will not schedule a confirmation hearing for Acting CMS Administrator Marilyn Tavenner. The article provided some hint as to the reasoning behind the Chairman’s position: “If she [Tavenner] did have a hearing, it would likely be dominated by controversial health reform politics.” In other words, Chairman Baucus and Democrats are shelving confirmation proceedings for a major Administration post – again – because they don’t want to talk about Obamacare.
As noted above, this isn’t the first time that Democrats have attempted to avoid debating the controversial health care law. With respect to Tavenner’s predecessor, Donald Berwick, Chairman Baucus could also have called a confirmation hearing any time he liked, but chose not to do so. Even as liberals alleged that “Republicans refuse[d] to even have [sic] a hearing” about Dr. Berwick, the fact remains that Republicans have no power to block the Senate Finance Committee from moving forward – on Berwick’s nomination, Tavenner’s nomination, or any other nomination.
Much as the White House may want to blame Republican obstruction for the delays in confirming a CMS Administrator, the Administration should take a closer look in the mirror at its own party’s actions. While the White House alleged that Dr. Berwick’s nomination was blocked because senators “put political interests above the best interests of the American people,” it was Democrats who did not want to call a hearing, and were afraid to discuss either Berwick or Obamacare at any point during the second half of 2010, their huge Senate majorities notwithstanding. Moreover, according to key Democrat staffers, the Administration wanted to appoint a CMS Administrator in 2009, but decided not to, perhaps because it did not want to tell the American people who would actually implement Obamacare prior to its enactment.
Some may find the irony that even as the Administration attempts to sell the unpopular law to the American people, Democrats in Congress appear to have settled on a “Don’t Mention the War” strategy towards the 2700-page legislative behemoth. Regardless, the net effect will be that unconfirmed bureaucrats have been given control over every American’s health insurance, and a budget larger than the Pentagon’s, for four years without so much as a cursory hearing.