Expected CMS Nomination Is Next Step in Health Care Debate

The anticipated nomination of a noted Harvard University scholar to head the agency overseeing Medicare and Medicaid is likely to reignite the health care debate when Congress returns in two weeks from its spring recess.

A White House official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, confirmed that the administration plans to nominate Donald M. Berwick to become the new administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).

A clinical professor of pediatrics and health policy at Harvard Medical School, Berwick founded the Institute for Healthcare Improvement in 1991 to identify and foster best practices in medicine that would save lives and reduce suffering.

If confirmed, he would take over the long-vacant CMS post as the agency prepares to impose hundreds of billions of dollars of Medicare cost reductions mandated by the new health care overhaul law, as well as undertake an expansion of Medicaid.

The top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee signaled that Berwick would face tough scrutiny at his confirmation hearing.

CQ Politics