Related KHN interactive map: Medicare Reimbursements Per EnrolleeThe Hill reports on a lack of leadership at The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS): "Nine months into his term, President Barack Obama has yet to nominate someone to head an agency that will play an enormous role in implementing any healthcare reform legislation Congress passes this year. The agency has 4,400 employees, a $676 billion annual budget and a duty to provide healthcare to 44.6 million people enrolled in Medicare, 51 million in Medicaid and 6.3 million in the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP). In effect, the nation's largest health insurer has been without a CEO for three years." "'It's totally bizarre, what's going on,' said Gail Wilensky, a senior fellow at Project HOPE who ran the agency for two years during the George H.W. Bush administration. 'It's a very bad situation, particularly in a year when healthcare reform is such a big issue.' The leadership vacuum at CMS dates back to the George W. Bush administration. The last person to receive Senate confirmation as CMS administrator was Mark McClellan, who resigned on Oct. 15, 2006. ... Since Obama took office in January, veteran CMS official Charlene Frizzera, the agency's chief operating officer, has been filling in as acting administrator" (Young, 9/20).

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