Head of CMS Stepping Down

Marilyn B. Tavenner, the administrator of the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, who supervised the troubled rollout of the federal insurance marketplace, said Friday that she was resigning. “February will be my last month serving as the administrator for CMS,” Ms. Tavenner said in an email to agency employees. Ms. Tavenner, who was partly responsible for the disastrous debut of the online insurance exchange in October 2013, had given no public indications that she would be stepping down. She joined the administration in February 2010, a few weeks before President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act. She was a senior official at the Medicare agency, which insures one in three Americans and has an annual budget of more than $800 billion, before she was confirmed by the Senate in May 2013 as administrator. Sylvia Mathews Burwell, Secretary of Health and Human Services, accepted the resignation in a statement filled with praise for Ms. Tavenner. “Marilyn will be remembered for her leadership in opening the health insurance marketplace,” Ms. Burwell said. “In so doing, she worked day and night so that millions of Americans could finally obtain the security and peace of mind of quality health insurance at a price they could afford.”

Source/more: New York Times