Donald Berwick, the rationing advocate President Barack Obama nominated to head the U.S. Medicare and Medicaid programs in the face of opposition from pro-life advocates, has quite his post in the Obama administration.

Because he is unable to get enough votes in the Senate to approve his nomination, his recess appointment will end and Berwick has decided to stop down from his position as the chief implementor of Obamacare, the health care law pro-life groups opposed because its prompts concerns about abortion funding, rationing, and fails to protect the conscience rights of medical workers.

Senate Republicans had blocked Berwick’s confirmation as chief of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Leading national pro-life organizations are blasting the Obama administration for its decision on Wednesday to disallow the state of Indiana to move forward with its request to cut off between $2-3 million in taxpayer funding the Planned Parenthood abortion business gets via Medicaid.

Governor Mitch Daniels signed the law to cut off the funding saying “any organization affected by this provision can resume receiving taxpayer dollars immediately by ceasing or separating its operations that perform abortions.”

However, the Obama administration has told the state it can’t implement the new law, with Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Donald Berwick denying a request to deny funds saying the federal Medicaid law stipulates that states can’t exclude providers based on the services they provide. Berwick also said the law makes it so states can’t prohibit access to family planning, which is provided under federal law.

Dr. Donald Berwick, the man in charge of Medicare and at the heart of implementing President Obama’s health care law, faced a barrage of questions from House Republicans over concerns about the plan and on his own controversial past positions.

But Berwick mostly praised the embattled new law and sidestepped questions about his own opinions on government-run health care.

A main Republican concern about the law is that the $575 billion it requires in Medicare reductions will make it hard for seniors to find doctors and other providers...

(CNSNews.com) – A coalition of health care groups is urging Congress to withhold money from the new health care law for the office of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, headed by the controversial Dr.

President Obama promised transparency and improved democratic responsiveness, but has delivered nothing but obfuscation and prevarication in governance, at least when it comes to Obamacare. Few examples more vividly illustrate this anti accountability approach than the sorry history of Donald–it’s going to be a short gig–Berwick as head of Medicare/Medicaid.

First, he was nominated, but the Democrats wouldn't hold hearings, probably afraid that Berwick would be confronted with his pro rationing views.

So, Obama used a recess appointment to get him in the job, thereby subverting the democratic process. True, other president’s have used the RA to get people into office who were being held up in the Senate without an up or down vote...

(CNSNews.com) – Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) is asking Dr. Donald Berwick, who now heads the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, to disclose any conflicts of interest arising between his new role and his old one as the CEO of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI).

In a July 29 letter, Grassley -- the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee -- asked Berwick to honor promises he made to Grassley while his nomination was still pending in the Senate. Berwick was recess-appointed by President Obama on July 7 while Congress was on its July 4 break.)

Now that Berwick has been recess-appointed, Grassley wants the doctor – who defends health care rationing and has praised Britain’s government-run National Health Service – to keep his promise and allow the Senate to examine the books of IHI, as well as the list of donors it gave to the Internal Revenue Service...

Washington (CNSNews.com) – Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) says he is concerned about the prospect of health care rationing following the recess appointment of Dr. Donald Berwick to serve as the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicare Services.

Pence, speaking Tuesday at a Congressional Health Caucus event, said Berwick was “not entitled to that job” and should have had a confirmation hearing.

“I think an appointment of such magnitude, at a time of enormous public debate, as a recess appointment was wrong,” Pence told CNSNews.com. “I think it was wrong for the president to bypass the confirmation process at a time when the American people are so focused on legislation where the ink is barely dry...

(CNSNews.com) -- Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) told CNSNews.com that Dr. Donald Berwick, who was recess-appointed by President Barack Obama to run the Center for Medicare and Medicaid, is “not a person who should be appointed” to the job.

On Capitol Hill, CNSNews.com asked Senator Brownback, “On July 1, 2008, in a speech commemorating the 60th anniversary of Britain’s single-payer health-care system, Dr. Donald Berwick, President Obama’s recess-appointee to run Medicare, said the following, quote, ‘Any health care funding plan that is just, equitable, civilized and humane must – must -- redistribute wealth from the richer among us to the poorer and the less fortunate.’ Do you agree with that or disagree with that?”....

A pro-life spokesman has some well-founded concerns about Barack Obama's choice for America's new Medicare/Medicaid "czar."

While members of Congress were on vacation last week, President Obama made a controversial but constitutionally permissible recess appointment, choosing Dr. Donald Berwick to head up the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). Under that appointment -- which has been criticized by both sides of the political aisle -- Berwick could serve through next year without Senate confirmation. (See earlier story)

Recess appointments are not uncommon. In fact, Barack Obama's four predecessors took that route more than 600 times combined. But the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) believes President Obama chose this route for Berwick so the 63-year-old Harvard professor could avoid close inspection during a confirmation process...

(CNSNews.com) – White House spokesman Robert Gibbs has evaded answering the question of whether President Barack Obama agrees with Dr. Donald Berwick, his newly appointed administrator of Medicare and Medicaid, who has insisted that health-care systems must redistribute wealth.

“Excellent health care is by definition redistributional,” Berwick said in a speech delivered on July 1, 2008.

When asked directly at the July 7 White House press briefing whether Obama agreed with this, Gibbs would not answer the question. Instead, he parried it with jocular statements about the provenance of the quote...