HHS nominee Sylvia Mathews Burwell coasts through Senate hearing
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Version 0 of 1. Barack Obama’s nominee for health secretary, Sylvia Mathews Burwell, emerged unscathed from a Senate hearing on Thursday, in another indication that the Republican drive to portray the president’s healthcare law as a catastrophic failure is running out of steam. Burwell, the proposed replacement for Kathleen Sebelius, who resigned last month, was expected to be subject to a severe grilling from Senate Republicans ahead of a vote on her confirmation. A recent change in Senate rules makes it highly unlikely that Republicans can block Burwell's nomination, but the GOP had been planning to use her two appearances in their long-running campaign against Barack Obama’s healthcare reform, the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which they have pledged to repeal. But on Thursday, Burwell glided through two hours of testimony before the committee on health, education, labor and pensions, as senators on both sides of the aisle praised her experience and skills. There were no testy exchanges, and none of the Republican senators present landed any solid punches against the ACA. Burwell's warm reception was partly the result of bipartisan agreement that she is an accomplished manager, having excelled in her current role as head of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). She was endorsed by the Senate for the OMB job in April last year, in a 96-0 vote, making it difficult for Republicans to strongly object to her taking on the role of health secretary. While leading the OMB, she also helped achieve a rare budget agreement between Democrats and Republicans, raising her standing in both parties. The tone for the hearing was set by the Arizona Republican John McCain, who introduced Burwell to the committee, emphasising her time running the Walmart Foundation. McCain said he worried for Burwell, a friend, taking over “as captain of the Titanic, after it hit the iceberg”, but urged fellow senators to trust her with the department’s trillion-dollar budget. Republicans are determined to use opposition to Obamacare as a central theme in the run-up to November’s midterm elections. The botched rollout last fall of the healthcare.gov website, coupled with the cancellation of some plans that didn’t meet the higher standards for coverage set by the ACA and an unpopular mandate requiring almost all Americans to obtain insurance or pay a penalty, had for several months put Democrats on the back foot. Yet over the last two months the tide has turned. The administration significantly exceeded its ambitions for enrollment through the exchanges set up by the law, with more than eight million people signing up for insurance. A report by Gallup earlier this week revealed a dramatic drop in the number of uninsured in America. Republicans experienced another setback on Wednesday, when an attempt to use health insurance company executives to prove a point backfired. Republicans in the House of Representatives called the executives to testify, hoping they would reveal that a disappointingly low number of people actually paid for the insurance they got through the exchanges, which they argue is the real measure of Obamacare's impact. Republicans on one House committee had earlier released the results of a survey of insurance companies, which they claimed showed that only about two-thirds of the people the administration counts as having signed up through the exchanges will actually be covered. But the methodology of that survey has been challenged, with both liberal critics and industry insiders saying it was conducted to produce the desired result. On Wednesday, the executives indicated that around 80% of those who enrolled for healthcare plans had already paid their first premium – and that it is likely that number will go up. On Thursday, Senator Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat, pointed to that hearing as one of an array of positive signs for Obamacare. “I think this increasing avalanche of good news and positive data about the implementation of the Affordable Care Act is going to ultimately lead to much broader public acceptance and support for the law,” he said. Republicans disagreed, but the pushback from their senators seemed half-hearted. One, Johnny Isakson, from Georgia, did not mention healthcare at all, choosing to use his allotted five minutes in the Burwell hearing to lobby for federal funds to build a port in Savannah. Burwell was more than an hour into her testimony before she was pressed over the bungled rollout over the healthcare website, which Senator Mike Enzi of Wyoming said the administration had “three years and $600bn dollars to build”. (This was a misstatement of a common Republican contention about the website, which is that it cost $600m, though even that number is contested.) Burwell, Enzi noted, was responsible for oversight of government IT issues in her role as director of the OMB. Burwell repeated the administration’s line that the rollout was unacceptable, and lessons would be learned. The day-to-day control of the website was the responsibility of the department of health, she said, while the OMB simply moved “to apply a surge of resource” once it became apparent the site was failing. Burwell’s next appearance will be before the Senate finance committee, which, unlike the committee she appeared before on Thursday, will hold a vote on her confirmation. If her first reception on Capitol Hill was anything to go by, Burwell need not worry. Richard Burr, a North Carolina Republican who serves on both committees, said he intended to vote for her confirmation. “It is for one primary reason,” he said, summing up the tone of the hearing. “She doesn’t come with a single experience that would make her a good secretary. She comes with a portfolio of experience that would make her a tremendous asset.” He added: “I look forward to her confirmation being quick.” |