WASHINGTON – Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, a senior member and former chairman and ranking member of the Finance Committee, on Thursday asked the President’s nominee for secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services whether she will have a more accountable, visible presence than others in the Obama Administration who seem to have retreated from Congress and the public while implementing the health care law. Grassley made the following comment on his question to Sylvia Mathews Burwell.
Here is the text of Grassley’s question:
“When you were nominated, I said that anybody put in charge of Obamacare would be set up to fail. The theme of this law really has been ‘by any means necessary.’ The legislative process certainly was by any means necessary. The implementation has operated similarly. The Department we are considering you to lead has ignored the plain read of the statute whenever it was considered necessary. Deadlines were considered to be written in pencil. If the statute needed to be creatively reinterpreted to make the program work, the Department did so. As I said the day you were nominated, you have a fresh start with Congress and with the public. But if you are going to make the most of the opportunity, you are going to have to do things differently.
“(Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services director) Marilyn Tavenner sat in the same chair as you. She committed to do things differently. Now it seems like she’s gone into the witness protection program, it’s been so long since she was last in that chair or at my door. I hope that doesn’t happen with you. I hope you don’t disappear into the same bunker.
“But this is what you face moving forward. The Department is supposed to implement the employer mandate, a year overdue and significantly altered from the statute. The Department is supposed to implement risk corridors this year, though the legal authority to distribute funds is questionable and the standards used in making those distributions will likely be kept very quiet.
“And speaking of things that will be kept quiet, Congress is going to want to know what the premiums will be for next year. We consider the information important and relevant. Iowa is considered to be one of the states most at risk for premium spikes. The Department will want to use any means necessary to hide the premiums until after the November elections unless of course the premium numbers are good then the Department will shout them from the rooftops, much as they did with enrollment numbers.
“We can be cordial today. But if you want to change the relationship your Department has with Congress, you are going to have to be willing to break the ‘by any means necessary’ mindset that we have seen for the past five years. My question to you in closing is this: do you think it is possible for you to change the ‘by any means necessary’ culture at HHS that some of us in Congress view as bordering on lawless?”
“If you want to change the relationship the department has with Congress you’re going to have to be willing to break the ‘by any means necessary’ mindset that we’ve seen for the last five years,” Grassley told Burwell. “Do you think it is possible for you to change the ‘by any means’ culture at HHS that some of us in Congress view as borderline lawless?”
