Tom Daschle, Obama's pick for secretary of health and human services (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
Obama’s health care plan
Barack Obama has tapped former Senate majority leader Tom Daschle to be his secretary of Health and Human Services, said Jonathan Cohn in The New Republic online, as well as his “point person on health care reform.” And it’s “a perfect role for Daschle.” He’s become a “true wonk” on health care in the past few years, and now he's got a shot to realize his big idea for a Federal Reserve-like “federal health board.”
That’s why Obama chose him, said Ezra Klein in The American Prospect online. You don’t pick someone with Daschle’s clout and experience getting legislation through Congress unless you’re serious about reforming health care. When Bill Clinton tried, he chose two “policy wonks”—including Hillary Clinton—with scant Washington savvy.
Daschle was a “Senate warhorse,” but he’s also “very liberal” on health care, said The Wall Street Journal in an editorial. The bigger signal that Obama means business is that Sen. Max Baucus—who is “more moderate, and cautious”—released a “policy blueprint” that closely resembles Obama’s plan. If Democrats makes this a priority, that’s where they’ll start.
Daschle’s ideas may be “pretty far to the left,” said Patrick Edaburn in The Moderate Voice, but thanks to the “budgetary restraints” Obama is inheriting, it’s unlikely he’ll be able to try them out. Picking Daschle may be “a sop to the left”—when Obama fails to enact universal health care, he can point to Daschle and “say he tried.”
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Recent comments | 15 total
No...if it fails again it won't be Obama's nor Daschle's fault but once again the obstructionist right and big business interests.
Glenn, please get a clue. If you honestly do your research on countries that offer 'free' healthcare, things get out of control. Hawaii tried it and lasted all of 7 months. I live in ND and constantly see Canadians in our hospitals/clinics (two of my cousins are nurses) Britian now pays for hymen reattachment to Mideastern girls being sent back for arranged marriages. They also paid for IVF for an Indian couple that abandoned the twin babies when they turned out to be girls. there ARE existing programs in the US for people too poor to buy health insurance. for the rest of us it is our civic duty, don't kid yourself
Jesica, it's impossible to write and talk sensibly about the consequences of socialized medicine with those people who have only drunk the liberal kool-aid. Somehow they never hear or read about Hawaii’s failed experiment in free healthcare or how Canadians and Europeans come to the US if they want timely medical care. They don’t understand that when everyone is entitled, some will fall by the wayside due to limited availability of doctors and nurses. This is especially true when BO adds the mandatory care for 12 – 20 million illegal aliens to our healthcare system. Socialized medicine can’t force people to go to medical and nursing school so treatment and care will have to be rationed, just as it is in other countries. Doctors and nurses are already in limited availability due to outrageous insurance charges for malpractice. To reiterate your information that there are free and near-free medical programs is important. Pharmaceutical companies give away millions of dollars in free prescriptions to people who need but can’t afford the medicine. Unfortunately until the uninformed and illiterate destroy the greatest medical system in the world, they won’t be happy. They refuse to learn about it and only speak from their hard-headed, see no truth, dementia.
The spin doesn't matter anymore. Yipeee! We have a real president.
I forgot. Dems call truth and facts...spin, after their greatest spin-master, BC. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but not to their own facts, and that is what scares the kool-aid drinkers.
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