Senate confirms Burwell as HHS secretary

[DonViejo]

Source: Washington Post

The Senate on Thursday confirmed Sylvia Mathews Burwell, the White House’s budget director for the past year, as the 22nd secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.

On a bipartisan vote of 78 to 17, senators approved Burwell to lead the government’s largest domestic department, ending a quick confirmation process that was devoid of the bitter partisanship surrounding the 2010 Affordable Care Act and the changes it is bringing to the U.S. health-care system.





Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/senate-poised-to-confirm-burwell-as-new-secretary-of-hhs/2014/06/05/bbd79400-ec06-11e3-9f5c-9075d5508f0a_story.html

[onehandle]

1. Most primaries threatened by teahadists are over.

Safe for Republicans to do some real work for a few weeks.

[valerief]

2. Why no fight?

Oh.
from link

Before returning to Washington last year, Burwell spent more than a decade in the world of philanthropy — with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and then as president of the Walmart Foundation.

During the Clinton administration, Burwell held several economic roles — as staff director of the White House National Economic Council, as Treasury chief of staff under then-secretary Robert Rubin, and then at the Office of Management and Budget, where she eventually became the deputy director.

After becoming budget director 14 months ago, Burwell was mired at first in fiscal conflicts with congressional Republicans and, by October, had to manage the 16-day partial shutdown of the government.

Despite her Washington experience, she is not well known in health policy circles, and, during her confirmation hearings, she gave little concrete sense of the direction in which she will take the complex department she will inherit.

[Zorra]

3. Third Way type, business friendly corporate executive, ya know, that "profit over people" idea.

Republicans just love that kind of thing. They're ecstatic that a Mother Teresa type bleeding heart liberal won't be the Secretary of HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES.

[Doctor_J]

4. She swore (on the record) there would be no discussion of single payer HC while she's at HHS

"What's good for Aetna is good for America"