Daschle Nominated to Human Services Cabinet Post

By Helene Cooper
The New York Times
November 19, 2008

President-elect Barack Obama has offered the nomination of Secretary of Health and Human Services to Tom Daschle of South Dakota, the former Democratic Senate leader who was an early supporter of Mr. Obama’s run for the presidency.

Democratic officials said that Mr. Daschle has accepted the nomination.

Mr. Obama’s transition team announced on Wednesday that Mr. Daschle will also oversee Mr. Obama’s health policy working group to develop a health care plan, which could take care of what his friends say was one of Mr. Daschle’s conditions for considering the HHS post. He was concerned that he not just be the head of a huge bureaucracy but a chief player on the subject he has literally written a book on.

Mr. Daschle’s book about health policy “Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis” came out in February. In it he proposes creating a Federal Health Board, similar to the Federal Reserve System, and the merging of employers’ plans, Medicaid and Medicare with an expanded federal employee health benefits program that would provide universal coverage.

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/19/daschle-takes-human-services-cabinet-post/?hp

And…

Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis

By Senator Tom Daschle with Scott S. Greenberger and Jeanne M. Lambrew
Macmillan

Daschle’s solution lies in the Federal Reserve Board, which has overseen the equally complicated financial system with great success. A Fed-like health board would offer a public framework within which a private health-care system can operate more effectively and efficiently — insulated from political pressure yet accountable to elected officials and the American people. Daschle argues that this independent board would create a single standard of care and exert tremendous influence on every other provider and payer, even those in the private sector.

http://us.macmillan.com/critical

Today’s quote leads to a question: Can Sen. Daschle’s Federal Health Board do for the crisis in health care what the Federal Reserve Board has done for nation’s financial crisis?

Stay tuned.