Treasury Secretary O’Neill’s Resignation Bad for Health System, Broder Says

The resignation of former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill marks a loss in the health care debate "that Congress and the Bush administration now seem ready to begin," David Broder writes in a Washington Post column. O'Neill's understanding of "what needs fixing" in the U.S. health care system, his experience organizing health care services in southwestern Pennsylvania as CEO of Alcoa and his reputation in Washington, D.C., as a "truth teller" would have made his input on the "dysfunctional" health care system "useful," Broder writes. He suggests that O'Neill would be a "natural" candidate to chair a citizens' health care commission -- as proposed in a bill by Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) -- that would hold public hearings and draft a report on universal, high-quality, affordable health care. Following his "involuntary retirement," O'Neill perhaps "can go back" to work on improving the "quality and efficiency" of health coverage nationwide, Broder concludes, adding, "He would force everyone to face facts about our faltering health care system" (Broder, Washington Post, 12/10).