Below The Beltway

This one doesn’t make any sense to me except as an exercise in pure naked partisanship:

A GOP stall on all Health and Human Services nominees has left the department without a surgeon general during a period of a global flu pandemic, prompting the HHS secretary to call for Senate action.

Regina Benjamin, the surgeon general nominee, “is ready to be voted on in the Senate, and we would just strongly urge the United States Senate” to act, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said during an MSNBC interview Friday in which she discused the department’s response to the spread of the H1N1 virus.

President Barack Obama on Saturday declared the H1N1 outbreak a national emergency.

“We are facing a major pandemic, we have a well-qualified candidate for surgeon general, she’s been through the committee process. We just need a vote in the Senate,” Sebeilus said. “Please give us a surgeon general.”

Benjamin was unanimously approved by the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee on Oct. 7, but Senate Republicans are holding up all HHS nominees over a so-called gag order on insurance companies that have been critical of Democratic efforts to reform health care.

“We’ve not received any recent calls from the administration about their nominee,” a senior Republican aide said. “There won’t be any time agreements for confirmation of HHS nominees until their actions have been fully reviewed.”

At issue is an investigation of insurance companies by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, a division of the HHS, which announced the probe last month after a letter surfaced from Humana to seniors critical of the Senate Finance Committee’s health care bill.

CMS officials charged that the letter contained misleading information, a claim Republicans have disputed.

“We believe this hold is irresponsible,” a HELP Committee aide said. “Everyone agrees Regina Benjamin is abundantly qualified and clearly needed to fill this position.”

Whether Benjamin is absolutely essential to the H1N1 fight is debatable.

What’s not debatable is that this President, any President, is entitled to have his nominees voted on and confirmed if qualified, and there’s no question that Benjamin is qualified. Republicans used to believe in that very idea. Of course, that was when a Republican was President.

H/T: David Weigel