President Obama has appointed Dr. Donald Berwick, who won the $100,000 Purpose Prize in 2007, to be administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), which operates health programs that insure almost a third of all Americans.

The president pushed through a “recess appointment” of Berwick during Congress’ annual Fourth of July break, triggering some criticism by Republicans. Noting that the CMS post had been unfilled since 2006, Obama’s communications director, Dan Pfeiffer, wrote on the White House blog that Republications “were going to stall the nomination as long as they could, solely to score political points.”