Obama Nominates New CMS Administrator

Donald Berwick, MD has been nominated by President Obama to be the next CMS Administrator. Berwick is a clinical professor of pediatrics and healthcare policy at the Harvard Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health as well as a president and chief executive officer of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, based in Cambridge, Mass.

If confirmed, Dr. Berwick would play an important role in the implementation of the recently passed healthcare bill.  However, it is expected that he will face a difficult confirmation fight, as the GOP already questioning his qualifications and asserting that the hearing will likely be used as an opportunity to continue the discord over healthcare reform.