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Re: White House frustrations grow over incompetent Pelosi chosen boob health chief Becerra's handling of pandemic

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In article <sp92nk$4k9$13@news.dns-netz.com>
<governor.swill@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I believe Biden is incompetent and insane.  Facts speak for themselves.
>

White House officials have grown so frustrated with top health 
official Xavier Becerra as the pandemic rages on that they have 
openly mused about who might be better in the job, although 
political considerations have stopped them from taking steps to 
replace him, officials involved in the discussions said.

Top White House officials have had an uneasy relationship with 
Becerra, the health and human services secretary, since early in 
President Biden’s term. But their dissatisfaction has escalated 
in recent months as the omicron variant has sickened millions of 
Americans in a fifth pandemic wave amid confusing and sometimes 
conflicting messages from top health officials that brought 
scrutiny to Biden’s strategy, according to three senior 
administration officials and two outside advisers with direct 
knowledge of the conversations.

The frustration with Becerra comes as top White House and health 
officials face growing criticism for health messaging missteps, 
as well as controversial policies about coronavirus testing and 
isolation. The administration has also struggled in the face of 
a tsunami of cases that have overwhelmed hospitals and shuttered 
some schools and businesses because so many workers became 
infected.

White House and HHS officials denied such tensions and pointed 
to the administration’s work on delivering vaccines, as well as 
new covid treatments and diagnostic tests, as proof of a 
productive working relationship. “Since day 1, the 
administration has managed a strong, coordinated COVID-19 
response thanks to Secretary Becerra and HHS officials at every 
level of government,” White House spokesman Kevin Munoz said in 
a statement.

Becerra, a former California attorney general and longtime 
congressman with no front-line health-care experience, was never 
given a clear role in a response that is run out of the White 
House, prompting defenders to say it is unfair to blame him for 
recent stumbles. Still, his low profile has become more 
confounding as the pandemic has worn on and health officials 
have made statements that sometimes blindsided the president and 
bewildered the public, some officials and outside experts say.

They also said the health secretary isn’t fulfilling a core 
responsibility of his job, which is to act as a de facto field 
marshal coordinating the nation’s vast health bureaucracy to 
achieve the White House’s strategy, even though he does not set 
it. For instance, they cited officials’ airing of differences 
over booster shots and covid-19 isolation guidance as confusing 
and unnecessary. They said the tension between Becerra and the 
White House has complicated the pandemic response at a time when 
Americans are already exhausted and struggling to make sense of 
ever-changing guidelines.

“He hasn’t shown up,” said Eric Topol, director of the Scripps 
Research Translational Institute and a prominent covid analyst, 
adding that Becerra has been “like a ghost” during the pandemic. 
“An HHS secretary has so much authority and power to help. And 
we have no evidence that any of it is being exerted.”

Topol, who wrote an editorial in Science magazine this month, 
saying Becerra had “shirked” responsibilities such as collecting 
covid data and coordinating his deputies, said he had heard 
similar concerns from people close to the White House. The 
secretary has “to step up or step aside,” Topol said.

Several administration officials voiced similar displeasure with 
Becerra’s leadership, although they would not do so on the 
record because they were not authorized to speak with the media. 
The health secretary “is taking too passive a role in what may 
be the most defining challenge to the administration,” said one 
senior administration official.

This story is based on interviews with 28 senior administration 
officials, health agency officials, outside advisers and 
experts, most of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to 
detail sensitive discussions.

As health secretary, Becerra oversees a $1.5 trillion agency 
charged with responding to myriad national crises, including 
disease outbreaks, extreme weather events and housing migrant 
children at the border. He is responsible for coordinating 
policy rollouts and communications among health agencies such as 
the Food and Drug Administration, the National Institutes of 
Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a job 
made particularly difficult by the pandemic. The nation’s most 
prominent health officials, including CDC Director Rochelle 
Walensky, Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy and Anthony S. Fauci, 
the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious 
Diseases, all report to Becerra or his deputies.

Bipartisan lawmakers have raised concerns about the agency’s 
persistent coordination difficulties, from collecting infectious-
disease data to clearly communicating health guidance. A 
government watchdog last week echoed those criticisms, saying 
such issues have plagued responses to emergencies across four 
presidential administrations and, if left unaddressed, will 
“hamper the nation’s ability to be prepared for, and effectively 
respond to, future threats.”

Yet removing Becerra would likely draw the ire of the 
Congressional Hispanic Caucus and other grass-roots groups that 
pressed Biden to appoint more Latinos to his Cabinet. Officials 
are also loath to take on a complicated staffing change with a 
divided Senate as they prioritize confirmation of a new Supreme 
Court justice and navigate election-year politics.

Biden is also averse to firing staffers and unlikely to make 
major changes unless there are glaring reasons to do so, one 
senior official said. As a result, the informal conversations 
about replacing Becerra are unlikely to escalate to serious 
deliberations in the near future.

Munoz, the White House spokesperson, dismissed the criticism of 
Becerra as “anonymous gossip,” adding in a statement that “HHS 
is one of the most critical agencies in this fight and we have 
built a coordinated operation that is working together day and 
night, every single day of the week.”

HHS officials also praised Becerra’s work on the pandemic and 
said he deserved credit for other policy accomplishments, such 
as record enrollment this year in the Affordable Care Act’s 
health insurance exchanges.

“He’s been just a great thought partner,” said Dawn O’Connell, 
assistant secretary for preparedness and response at HHS, citing 
Becerra’s guidance on key priorities. For instance, O’Connell’s 
team on Jan. 1 took on direct oversight of distributing tests, 
masks and other medical supplies across the nation, a 
responsibility that previously rested with the team known as 
Operation Warp Speed and was jointly managed with the Department 
of Defense. While the Government Accountability Office warned it 
was “unclear” whether HHS was ready for the transition, 
O’Connell said that Becerra had helped empower her team so it 
could “hit the ground running” this month.

“We’ve got these vaccines out, we’ve got boosters available. 
Tests are being delivered to American households, masks are 
being handed out. And the secretary has just been there to 
support that effort,” she said.

Confusing chain of command

The White House’s frustration with the health secretary reflects 
a complicated dynamic that has its origins in how the 
administration set up the pandemic response.

From the start, the effort was run out of the White House and 
led by presidential counselor Jeff Zients, a former Obama 
economic adviser with extensive management experience known for 
helping repair HealthCare.gov, the health insurance website that 
struggled to launch in 2013, but no public health background. He 
communicates directly with health leaders, including Fauci, 
Walensky and Murthy, often referred to as “the team of doctors.”

Although all of those officials technically report to Becerra or 
his deputies, the health secretary was never given a clear role 
in the response and joined the administration in late March, 
more than six months after Biden aides had begun to draw up a 
detailed covid battle plan. And compared with senior officials 
like Zients, Murthy, Fauci and others working on the covid 
response team, Becerra had fewer ties to Biden or his inner 
circle.

That chain of command is further complicated by the fact that 
the White House has taken a hands-off approach to the CDC and 
some other health agencies because it is sensitive to charges of 
political interference after Biden repeatedly criticized the 
Trump administration’s meddling in scientific debates and 
policies during his campaign. It is sometimes unclear who makes 
final decisions or is in charge of carrying out initiatives, 
with Zients absorbing much of the portfolio that would have gone 
to an HHS secretary in previous administrations.

As a result, several officials described an often confusing 
structure, with leaders like Fauci, Walensky and Murthy dealing 
primarily with Zients’s team, others reporting jointly to 
Becerra and Zients, and some messages getting muddled or lost as 
a result. Zients has faulted Becerra for not ensuring the White 
House knows what’s coming from the health agencies — 
particularly the CDC — according to six people familiar with the 
matter. Zients disputed that characterization through a White 
House official.

Tensions have also grown as a result of the pandemic’s 
persistence; many Biden officials thought the emergency phase of 
the pandemic would end by last summer and the White House would 
be able to turn to other issues.

Celine Gounder, an infectious-disease expert at New York 
University and a member of Biden’s covid transition task force, 
said it’s unclear “how much of [Becerra’s] role or non-role is 
driven by him versus the White House.”

“Certainly whether it’s him or the White House itself, there 
does need to be better coordination,” she said. “That isn’t to 
say there should be suppression of certain ideas but rather 
coordination of different agencies. He is certainly one person 
who could be doing that.”

White House and HHS spokespeople said that Zients and Becerra 
speak throughout the week and have a standing formal check-in. 
The White House and HHS also set up omicron-specific working 
groups on testing, vaccines, surge needs and other key issues, a 
White House official said.

Senior officials also said they take every effort to be 
transparent.

“I keep two lines of communication open at all times,” said 
O’Connell, the HHS emergency response chief, saying she “first” 
relays information to Becerra’s office and then informs the 
White House. “That’s always my goal: never to surprise anybody.”

Some officials say that Becerra has missed opportunities to be 
more proactive while facing a steep learning curve to master a 
sprawling, 80,000-person department responsible for the nation’s 
food safety, most of the U.S. clinical medicine trials, and many 
other health and social services programs, in addition to 
overseeing sensitive issues such as housing unaccompanied 
migrant children. While Becerra had years of experience as a 
lawmaker and lawyer who worked on health-care issues, he now 
faces a different set of challenges in trying to implement 
programs like the Affordable Care Act, rather than defend them 
in court.

The health secretary convenes a morning meeting most days where 
he gets briefed by top health officials on work related to the 
pandemic. But he mostly listens to updates without offering 
input or asking probing questions, two people familiar with the 
calls said.

The result, those people said, can be policy stumbles and 
conflicts that are worked out in public view.

“The battles and challenges between the agencies need to be 
reconciled, and he’s not doing it,” said one outside adviser. 
“He has a $1.5 trillion budget. He has FDA, NIH, CDC. All of 
those agencies need help, and they certainly need to be 
rebuilding, and none of that is happening.”

When the CDC announced in December, for instance, that it was 
halving the isolation and quarantine times for those infected 
with or exposed to the virus without requiring a negative test, 
Walensky, Fauci and Murthy voiced conflicting messages about the 
new guidance in public interviews. White House officials were 
embarrassed by the rollout, which invited fierce public 
blowback, and thought Becerra or one of his staffers should have 
coordinated those messages ahead of time, according to two 
senior administration officials.

Becerra “is all their bosses. And could coordinate them. But he 
doesn’t,” said a person involved in the covid response.

Sarah Lovenheim, HHS’s chief spokesperson, disputed such 
descriptions of Becerra’s style, writing in an email that 
“anyone who knows the Secretary knows that he’s a good listener 
— and that he always asks questions.” The purpose of his regular 
meetings, she added, “is usually to receive updates and 
understand ongoing developments, not to make major policy 
decisions. Major decisions require in-depth, focused discussion 
for which separate time is reserved for the team to engage.”

She also noted that Becerra wants to ensure that the 
administration’s doctors are able to speak freely, particularly 
after the Trump administration sought to muzzle top experts.

The “covid response is driven by the science and data,” 
Lovenheim wrote, adding that HHS informs the White House of “any 
high-level actions and decisions.”

“And, as the Secretary has often said, the quarterback on covid 
strategy is in the White House,” Lovenheim wrote. “The Secretary 
and the HHS team working on covid engage in constant 
communication.”

Inside HHS, Becerra has defenders who describe him as 
approachable and thoughtful, while focused on issues like 
lowering the rate of Americans without health insurance and 
closing persistent racial and ethnic gaps in U.S. health 
outcomes. He is well-liked by his staff, who feel empowered to 
carry out their jobs.

Some administration and outside advisers say it is unfair to 
blame Becerra for recent stumbles when the White House has 
commanded the response.

“It’s very clear to me that the White House is not looking for 
Becerra to be involved,” said one outside adviser, who spoke on 
the condition of anonymity to be candid. “What you can’t do is 
say, ‘We’re going to run it out of the White House,’ but not be 
involved with the agencies. Or if there is a role for Becerra, 
they should articulate it to him.”

A low profile
Becerra was a fallback choice for Biden and his team, who 
struggled to agree on a health secretary during the presidential 
transition and were turned down by other candidates.

But with the pandemic stretching into the second year of Biden’s 
presidency — and officials worried about the potential for yet 
another variant to pose problems — Becerra’s relatively low 
public profile has become more troublesome. It is also a stark 
departure from his predecessors’ roles during health crises.

Alex Azar, who led HHS during the Trump administration, appeared 
a dozen times during the first year of the pandemic on Sunday 
morning television shows such as NBC’s “Meet the Press” and its 
counterparts on ABC, CBS, CNN and Fox News, where the White 
House traditionally dispatches senior officials to put its 
decisions in the best light. Obama-era health officials like HHS 
Secretaries Kathleen Sebelius and Sylvia Mathews Burwell also 
regularly appeared on the programs, and the Biden administration 
has followed suit, having White House coronavirus coordinator 
Zients and Fauci appear multiple times over the past year.

But since being sworn in as health secretary, Becerra has yet to 
appear on a single Sunday morning TV show. The Association of 
Health Care Journalists on Nov. 29 separately faulted the health 
secretary for his “low profile,” calling on him to hold more 
visible and frequent media briefings.

“It’s time for Secretary Becerra to come out of hiding,” Felice 
Freyer, the group’s president, said in an accompanying 
statement. Freyer this week said that the group had not received 
a response and that Becerra was still failing to hold regular, 
open-ended briefings.

Lovenheim, Becerra’s spokesperson, said that it was “patently 
false” that Becerra keeps a lower profile than his predecessors, 
citing his travel to more than 20 states and his frequent 
appearances on TV and radio. She added that Becerra holds 
briefings with the media at least once per week but suggested 
that other matters took precedence.

“Would you rather have a Secretary who prioritizes TV 
appearances over getting tests, therapeutics and vaccines into 
the hands of people who need them?” Lovenheim wrote.

A proposal to boost vaccinations
Becerra’s role overseeing the federal government’s health 
bureaucracy means that some pandemic initiatives must go through 
him. And he has sometimes pushed back on proposals championed by 
officials leading the response.

In the spring, for instance, as administration officials 
searched for ways to encourage more Americans to get vaccinated, 
they coalesced around a plan to pay some doctors more if they 
encouraged their patients to get the shots. The proposal would 
have paid doctors through the government health insurance 
programs Medicare and Medicaid, which fall under HHS and 
collectively cover more than 100 million people.

But the plan came to a halt at one point because of Becerra’s 
concerns that it lacked sufficient oversight and might lead to 
fraud, according to two people with knowledge of the discussions.

Some White House and HHS officials were incensed by Becerra’s 
opposition to the proposal, which drew on evidence that 
Americans were skeptical of politicians’ recommendations on 
vaccines but trusted the advice of their physicians.

“He sees too many things like a former attorney general and 
career congressman — and not like the top health official during 
a pandemic,” said one of those involved in the discussions.

A scaled-back version of the plan did take effect last month, 
when Medicaid began reimbursing doctors for talking to parents 
about vaccinating their children, a move cheered by health-care 
groups that sought the policy for months.

Lovenheim said the health secretary never “opposed” the plan 
last spring but wanted to focus on Medicaid, which serves 
children and younger adults who have far lower vaccination rates 
than seniors in Medicare.

“He raised serious reservations about efficacy and program 
integrity tied to trying to do this through Medicare,” Lovenheim 
wrote, suggesting that Becerra deserved credit for what was 
ultimately announced. “The proposal successfully went where he 
suggested it should go.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/01/31/becerra-hhs-
pandemic-response-leadership/

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Re: White House frustrations grow over incompetent Pelosi chosen boob health chief Becerra's handling of pandemic "Daily Mexican" <daily.mexican@gazette.com> - 2023-01-20 18:18 +0100

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