Speculating about presidential appointments is a favored pastime among Washington insiders, especially when a new administration is taking office. Sometimes, though, the wags have a little too much fun, creating headaches for the objects of the speculation.
Take the case of Mark Miller.
Miller is the executive director of something called the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC), a body that makes recommendations to Congress on how much doctors, hospitals and the like should get paid by the gigantic entitlement program.
Not that managing the highly respected commission isn't a plum job, but Miller, much to his surprise, got quite a promotion last Thursday morning.
The rumor mill had churned out a doozy: Miller was to be named by President-elect Obama as administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), a huge federal agency with 4,400 employees and a $676 billion annual budget.
Trouble was, it just wasn't true.
But the idea made just enough sense to make it dangerous. And despite Miller's efforts to quash the speculation, an influential trade association, a political news website and countless chatterboxes up and down K Street had spread the word — all before the clock struck 12.
Though a classic dark horse candidate, Miller appears to have the pedigree for the job: before MedPAC, he'd had stints at the Congressional Budget Office, the White House Office of Management and Budget, the Urban Institute and, yes, CMS.
A month before, Rep. Pete Stark (D-Calif.), who chairs a powerful healthcare subcommittee, told the trade newsletter, Inside CMS, that Miller was his long-shot first choice for the job.
What's more, Obama was set to announce former Sen. Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) as his pick for secretary of Health and Human Services and director of the White House Office of Health Reform at 11 a.m. Thursday, fueling speculation that the president-elect would trot out his whole healthcare team.
Meanwhile, a frustrated Miller fired off an e-mail to his staff.
"Pls read," Miller wrote in the subject line of the message, delivered at 9:34 a.m. Thursday. "There is a rumor that I am being named CMS administrator - that is not true. My name showed up in a blog somewhere. If anyone calls -- tell them it's not true."
The Hill first became aware of the rumor Wednesday. The gossip continued to cycle through Washington’s health policy circles throughout Thursday morning. The Hill made inquiries.
When The Hill asked some sources about it, word of the inquiries found their way to Miller's inbox,
"There is no truth to this. I have not sought it and I have not had talks with transition people about it. I do not have political connections to either party," Miller wrote to The Hill at around noon.
"Feel free to stomp it out," he wrote in a subsequent message to The Hill, complaining that another media outlet went with the erroneous scoop without contacting him first.
"That set all this off," he wrote.
Less than an hour before Miller notified his staff to disregard anything they might have heard, Politico reported that he'd been tapped for the CMS job (Politico retracted its story the next day).
And when the Federation of American Hospitals circulated a press release shortly after 11 a.m. with association president Chip Kahn congratulating Daschle, it had him offering congratulations, too, for Miller. After an hour or so, the hospital group issued a corrected version of its press release; it did not explicitly acknowledge the reason for the revision.
Embarrassing, sure, but these guys weren't alone. Lobbyists across town were burning up their Blackberries all morning, eager to be the first one to give the big news to their clients, fellow lobbyists, congressional aides, reporters and anyone else.
The tempest in a teapot also points up how frequently the prognosticators are off base.
Not long ago, Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) was thought to be a top candidate to be secretary of State. New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson (D) was on the "short list" for practically half the Cabinet before being named Obama’s pick for the Commerce Department. And Ret. Army Gen. Eric Shinseki was barely a blip on the radar for Veterans Affairs before his announcement.
Not to be chastened, though, some of the same downtown chatterboxes who pushed the Miller tidbit were quick to point out that he never actually said he wouldn't take the job at CMS if offered. And Obama has not yet announced who will be his CMS nominee.
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