Burwell was approved for her current post as director of the Office of Management and Budget by a 96-0 vote last year. The 49-year-old West Virginia native's resume also includes serving as president of the Walmart Foundation, chief operating officer at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and several key positions in President Bill Clinton's administration.
Burwell still faces a second hearing before the Senate Finance Committee before her nomination can be taken up by the full Senate. That hearing has not been scheduled, but is expected to occur before the end of the month. If confirmed as expected, Burwell will replace Kathleen Sebelius, who announced her resignation last month after five years as the top HHS official.
Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), the ranking minority member of the committee, quizzed Burwell on whether she would support Republican-backed proposals such as allowing sale of health insurance policies across state lines and permitting wider availability of low-cost catastrophic plans.
“You have a reputation for competence,” Alexander said. “I would respectfully suggest you're going to need it.”
Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) questioned whether Obamacare is simply an interim step toward a universal, single-payer healthcare system. Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) raised concerns about employee morale at the agency given chronic budget uncertainties. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) bemoaned rising premiums in her home state, indicating that Alaska has the second highest health insurance costs in the country.
“We have not worked to reduce the cost of healthcare, which we must do,” Murkowski said. “The financial burden for our families is such that they're looking at this and saying I'm better off paying the fines.”
The most unusual (and parochial) line of questioning came from Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.). He wanted to know what Burwell was doing in her current post at OMB to expedite approval of funding for the harbor expansion project in Savannah, Ga.
Burwell largely stuck to brief and innocuous answers during the two-hour session. She promised that the agency would be transparent and accountable under her stewardship. She also defended the Obama administration's use of regulatory authority to make adjustments to the federal healthcare law, which many Republicans have complained is an abuse of executive power.
“What we're trying to do is common-sense implementation within the law,” Burwell said. “That is the objective.”
