Berwick blasts Republicans in IHI speech

The former CMS administrator, at a speech in Orlando Wednesday, singled out those who generated "groundless fear" over "death panels."

Kaiser Health News: Capsules: Berwick Calls Republicans 'The True Rationers'
On Kaiser Health News' blog, Phil Galewitz writes: "Don Berwick, who left his job last week as head of the Medicare and Medicaid programs after sustained opposition from Senate Republicans who accused him of supporting rationing, struck back Wednesday with a blistering attack on his critics" (Galewitz, 12/8).

The Wall Street Journal: Ex-Medicare Chief Takes Gloves Off
Now that he's not running the Medicare and Medicaid programs, Donald Berwick is taking off the gloves to attack his Washington critics. ... In a speech Thursday in Orlando, Fla., Dr. Berwick had particularly sharp words for those who described the 2010 health overhaul as containing "death panels." "It is beyond cruelty to have subjected our elders, especially, to groundless fear in the pure service of political agendas," Dr. Berwick told a health conference. ... "Maybe a real death panel is a group of people who tell health care insurers that is it OK to take insurance away from people because they are sick or are at risk for becoming sick" (Adamy, 12/9).

Modern Healthcare: Berwick Decries Cynicism In IHI Keynote
Dr. Donald Berwick's keynote and homecoming message to the 23rd annual forum of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement in Orlando, Fla., ultimately was one of hope. ... And in returning to the organization he once led after a stormy 16 months in Washington as administrator of the CMS, Berwick received a standing ovation before delivering a speech in which he fired both barrels at the politics and cynicism that dogged his CMS tenure (Conn, 12/8).

CQ HealthBeat: Berwick Lets Loose Against 'Death Panel' Rhetoric
Freed from the confines of his office overlooking Capitol Hill, former Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Donald M. Berwick described for an audience of colleagues in the health policy world this week what he called the cynicism of Washington, epitomized by the "hogwash" claim that the health overhaul law included "death panels." "The outrageous rhetoric about death panels -; the claim, nonsense, fabricated out of nothing but fear and lies, that some plot is afoot to, literally, kill patients under the guise of end-of-life care. That is hogwash," Berwick said Wednesday in remarks prepared for the Institute for Health Improvement's annual conference in Orlando, Fla. (Bunis, 12/8).