Economic Scene - Lack of Medicare Chief Is a Strike Against Health Reform - NYTimes.com

Economic Scene - Lack of Medicare Chief Is a Strike Against Health Reform - NYTimes.com

Almost a year after taking office, President Obama has not yet nominated anybody to run Medicare.

The White House will offer plenty of reasons for the delay: the derailment of Tom Daschle’s candidacy as White House health adviser, the nitpicky nature of the Senate confirmation process, the likelihood that Republicans would use any nomination to slow health reform.

But consider what the next head of Medicare — officially, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services — will be facing whenever he or she is finally named. First will come that confirmation process. Then the person will have to learn the workings of an agency that oversees a budget $200 billion larger than the Pentagon’s. And finally there will be the small matter of helping to oversee big chunks of the most ambitious domestic policy legislation in decades.