House Republicans blast Obama administration’s response to Ebola

As the Obama administration works to calm public anxiety over Ebola, congressional Republicans took fresh aim Friday at its missteps in responding to the disease and its strategy for containing the virus.

The hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee came a day after a new case of Ebola was diagnosed in a New York City doctor who had recently returned from treating Ebola patients in Guinea, one of the three countries hit hardest by the outbreak in West Africa.

“Americans are understandably worried,” said committee chairman Darrell Issa, a San Diego-area Republican. “The news that a medical doctor returning from Guinea now has tested positive for Ebola raises even more questions.”

The inquiry came after lawmakers had already berated the administration, registering their outrage at its refusal to ban travel from African nations afflicted by Ebola and its failure to stop a nurse infected with Ebola from boarding a commercial airline in Texas.

Issa, one of the administration’s most vocal critics, took aim at what he called “evolving” accounts from the administration about how healthcare workers contracted the disease and why they were permitted to travel.

“We have the head of the Centers for Disease Control, who is supposed to be the expert, making statements that simply are not true,” Issa said. He pointed to assurances that sitting on a bus next to an infected person does not pose a danger, when the virus can indeed spread should the sick person vomit on other passengers.

Republicans on the committee also homed in on an inspector general’s report that revealed numerous problems with the federal government’s stockpile of supplies for dealing with pandemics. The Department of Homeland Security, the report found, had been failing to properly keep track of medicines and other equipment. The department has committed to addressing the inadequacies.

It was not just lawmakers criticizing the administration. A president of National Nurses United, Deborah Burger, testified that federal guidelines do not adequately protect nurses, leaving hospitals too much flexibility to take shortcuts and to not provide adequate protection or training. She said caregivers are “uncertain, severely unprepared and vulnerable to infection.”

The proceedings grew heated at times, even as lawmakers gave the administration credit for improving its performance in dealing with Ebola since the first case appeared in the United States.

One political target was veteran Democratic strategist Ron Klain, the administration’s newly appointed Ebola “czar.”

Klain, who just assumed the post Wednesday, declined to appear. Administration officials said he is not yet prepared to testify before Congress. Issa accepted that explanation, but he also said Klain was the wrong choice for the job.

“President Obama’s appointment of Ron Klain to serve as Ebola czar sadly, in my opinion, shows the administration, on one hand, recognizes its missteps but, on the other hand, is not prepared to put a known leader in charge or a medical professional in charge.”

Twitter: @evanhalper