(Bloomberg) — Congress should split the agency that runs Obamacare and Medicare from the Department of Health and Human Services to keep the White House from having too much influence over its operation, Senate Finance Chairman Orrin Hatch said.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which administers the health programs for the elderly and poor, is too big, said Hatch, a Utah Republican. The agency consumes about 85 percent of the health department's $1 trillion budget.
"For some time now, I have been concerned about the amount of influence HHS and the administration has over the operations and policies impacting the entitlement programs run by CMS," Hatch said in his opening statement for a hearing on the department's budget. "It is time to start talking about making CMS an independent agency apart from HHS."
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