WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama’s nominee for health secretary faced pointed questioning Thursday from Republican senators over the president’s health law but also won GOP praise in her first appearance before a Senate committee.
Sylvia Mathews Burwell, who will take over the law’s implementation if she is confirmed as Health and Human Services secretary, told senators that the law has improved the economy, held down the growth of health costs, reduced premiums and expanded coverage.
The law “is making a positive difference,” Burwell, who now serves as Obama’s budget director, said in testimony before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, the first of two Senate committees that will hold hearings on her nomination.
Read tomorrow's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for full details.