Senate Confirms New HHS Secretary

On May 5, the U.S. Senate confirmed Sylvia Mathews Burwell as the 22nd secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Burwell has been the White House’s budget director for the past year,

The bipartisan vote was 78 to 17.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), whose committee recommended Burwell to the full Senate, said moments before the vote that Burwell attracted what he called “a choir of bipartisan support” because “she is really that good, she is really that capable, and she is really that qualified.”

Burwell, a veteral of the Clinton administration’s economic team, will oversee 11 agencies that make up HHS, including the the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Burwell’ replaces Kathleen Sebelius, former governor of Kansas, who resigned last month following the fallout from the troubled rollout of the Affordable Care Act-mandated insurance marketplaces.

According to HHS, the 48-year-old Burwell will take over once she is sworn in on Monday. President Obama nominated her on April 11—the same day that Sebelius announced her resignation.

Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) told the Washington Post that he supported Burwell, “articulate, forthright, straightforward and candid — something we really haven’t had from the secretary of HHS for the last year or so. . . . I like having somebody who has the intellect and the capability and the willingness to be communicating with the members of Congress, regardless of their party

But Isakson added: “No one should confuse that vote, however, for being a vote in support of the Affordable Care Act or what it’s doing to health care in the United States today.”

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) planned to vote “no,” citing what he called Burwell’s “embrace of this disastrous law is reason enough to oppose her confirmation . . . The Senate shouldn’t be focusing on a new captain for the Titanic. It should focus on steering away from the iceberg.”

In the end, 24 Republicans joined all voting members of the Senate’s Democratic caucus in supporting Burwell. Still, the vote was more divided than a rare unanimous vote 14 months ago when the Senate confirmed her to direct the Office of Management and Budget.

Before returning to Washington last year, Burwell spent more than a decade in the world of philanthropy — with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and then as president of the Walmart Foundation.