Senate confirms Biden pick to lead Medicare, Medicaid office

The Senate voted on Tuesday to confirm President Biden’s pick to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, who will be the first Black woman to hold the key health policy position.

In a 55-44 vote, the upper chamber approved Brooks-LaSure as the CMS administrator, where she will oversee the Biden administration’s goals of expanding the Affordable Care Act.

Her confirmation brings another Obama-era official into Biden’s administration. Brooks-LaSure served in the former president’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in implementing the Affordable Care Act.

Five Republicans joined Democrats in supporting Brooks-LaSure’s confirmation: Sens. Roy Blunt (Mo.), Richard Burr (N.C.), Susan Collins (Maine), Jerry Moran (Kan.) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska).

Follows: The confirmation came after GOP lawmakers had opposed her nomination following the Biden administration’s decision to rescind Texas’s Medicaid waiver previously granted by the Trump administration.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) announced last month that he would place a hold on Brooks-LaSure’s nomination, saying the Biden administration “decided to play political chicken with uninsured Texans’ healthcare.”

Brooks-LaSure had not been confirmed when the Medicaid waiver was rescinded, so she had not participated in the decision.