Columnist: Joe Nocera

Doctor Berwick's Pink Slip

Recently, Doctor Berwick was blocked from being nominated for leading the Medicare program. Nocera believes that he was an intelligent man who had done so much to improve Medicare in the past 17 months but claimed the Republicans hated him for voicing an opinion contrary to their's. Nocera gives a short background on what made Berwick the "most qualified person" and a perfect fit for the job. He writes that the doctor was the "health care researcher at the Harvard School of Public" and "ran the Institute for Healthcare Improvement". Further on he described the health system's dilemma- too much money was being spent on it and used a view of the size of the expenditures: "a budget larger than the Pentagon’s". Nocera also blames Republicans "who blocked his nomination in the usual way. They pored through his old speeches and articles, plucked out a few comments they objected to — he once praised the British health care system! — and announced that they would never confirm him". The columnist reports that the Republicans did not recognize his work and that they will soon realize their mistakes that. According to Nocera, "By refusing to confirm him, Republicans won a pointless victory against the president".