Obama uses recess to hide his views.

The recess appointment of Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) head Don Berwick is unlike previous and common recess appointments by past presidents, explains Avik Roy, for several reasons. First among them is that generally presidents use recess appointments because Congress drags its feet on hearings. But in Berwick’s case, Obama used the recess appointment precisely to avoid hearings which Republicans were eager to have to expose Berwick’s extreme views on health care. Once more the Obama administration displays that it has no intention of keeping its promise of an open, transparent and debate-healthy administration.

4. Berwick is an advocate of socialized, government-controlled health care. As we and others have documented, Berwick is “starry-eyed” about Britain’s National Health Service, in which government owns the insurers, the hospitals, and the doctors’ offices. He is a highly intelligent and articulate defender of that position. Liberals claim that Republicans are taking his views out of context. If that is true, why not give Berwick a public platform to explain himself? The answer is clear: Berwick would only generate more controversy if he aired his views in Congress. And we’re not talking “controversy” in the mountain-out-of-a-molehill sense: We’re talking about the basic philosophy of whether or not we should have a free or centrally-planned health care system. The American public and, more importantly, the American idea, are not on Berwick’s side.

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Another example: this way Obama doesn’t have to worry about Berwick answering a question such as: “According to the Boston Globe the ‘The number of people who appear to be gaming the state’s health insurance system by purchasing coverage only when they are sick quadrupled from 2006 to 2008, according to a long-awaited report released yesterday from the Massachusetts Division of Insurance.’ How will government-funded medical programs at the federal level not meet the same fate?”