Medicare Chief Steps Down, Ran Health Care Rollout – ABC News

Medicare's top administrator unexpectedly resigned Friday, becoming the latest casualty in the turmoil over the president's health care law, which is still struggling for acceptance even as millions benefit from expanded coverage.

Marilyn Tavenner's departure underscores the uncertainty overshadowing President Barack Obama's health care law nearly five years after its party-line passage by a then-Democratic-led Congress. The Supreme Court will hear a challenge to the legality of the law's financial subsidies this spring, and a new Republican Congress is preparing more repeal votes.

A former intensive care nurse with a businesslike approach to a divisive area of public policy, Tavenner told staff in an email that she's stepping down at the end of February with "sadness and mixed emotions." Her chief of staff is also leaving.

Tavenner, 63, survived the technology meltdown that initially paralyzed HealthCare.gov. She remained in place even as her boss, former Health and Human Services secretary Kathleen Sebelius, left office following signals of White House unhappiness.

But Tavenner was embarrassed last fall when she testified to Congress that 7.3 million people were fully enrolled for private coverage under the health law. That number turned out to be an over-count that exaggerated the total by about 400,000 people. The error, discovered by Republican congressional staff, was termed "unacceptable" by new HHS Secretary Sylvia M. Burwell.

Tavenner had a played a key role in the 2013 decision to go live with HealthCare.gov, signing a required cybersecurity clearance after technology professionals under her balked because testing was incomplete. The website later passed security tests and received full authority to operate.

In her farewell message, Tavenner termed the health law's online insurance markets "a success." But she also said her job, which involves oversight of Medicare and Medicaid as well, was a "huge and complex responsibility" and "we had many additional challenges put before us" because of Obama's health law. Roughly 1 in 3 Americans are covered by health insurance programs run by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Despite Tavenner's close association with "Obamacare," some senior Republicans in Congress said they were sorry to see her leave.

"She has proven herself to be a strong leader and a straight shooter who brought in much-needed private sector sensibility into the agency," Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said in a statement. "I truly appreciate her service and wish her the very best in her next adventure."

But former House oversight chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., said, "Tavenner had to go." The over-count, discovered by his staff, "was a deplorable example of an agency trying to scam the American people," Issa said. The administration insists it was only a mistake, resulting from a double-count of people with dental coverage.