President-Elect Obama Nominates Daschle as Head of HHS, Director of New White House Office of Health Reform

President-elect Barack Obama on Thursday during a press conference in Chicago officially nominated former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) as the next HHS secretary, Reuters reports. Daschle also will serve as director of a new White House Office of Health Reform (Reuters, 12/11).

Jeanne Lambrew, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress who wrote a book with Daschle about health care reform, will serve as deputy director of the office. Previously, Lambrew worked on health policy in the Clinton administration (Rubenstein [1], "Health Blog," Wall Street Journal, 12/11). According to the AP/Detroit News, Lambrew, "one of Daschle's most trusted advisers," will "oversee planning efforts" (Freking, AP/Detroit News, 12/11).

Daschle said, "We're going to bring the American people into this conversation and make health care reform an open and inclusive process that goes from the grassroots up" (Rubenstein [2], "Health Blog," Wall Street Journal, 12/11). He added that he seeks to "make health care in this country as affordable and available as it is innovative" (Wayne/Armstrong, CQ Today, 12/11). Daschle has proposed to establish a Federal Health Board modeled after the Federal Reserve to determine the medications, medical devices and other treatments that federal health care programs should cover. Under his proposal, the president would nominate members of the board, and the nominations would require confirmation by the Senate (Pear, New York Times, 12/12).

According to Long Island Newsday, Obama "has provided few details about his health care proposal" and has not "outline[d] how his administration would pay for an overhaul that some estimate could exceed $100 billion a year" (Levey, Long Island Newsday, 12/12). During the press conference, Obama "pointed to better health information-technology and disease prevention programs as ways to cut costs from the system," the Wall Street Journal's "Health Blog" reports. Obama also cited the Medicare Advantage program as an example of not "necessarily giving good bang for the buck" (Rubenstein [2], "Health Blog," Wall Street Journal, 12/11).

Health Care Reform as Part of Economic Recovery
Obama during the press conference said that the current economic recession increases the need for health care reform (Levey, Chicago Tribune, 12/12). He said, "If we want to overcome our economic challenges, then we must finally address our health care challenge" (Edney, CongressDaily, 12/11). Obama said that health care reform "has to be intimately woven into our overall economic recovery plan" and is "not something that we can sort of put off because we're in an emergency" (Rubenstein [2], "Health Blog," Wall Street Journal, 12/11). According to Obama, health care reform is needed, regardless of whether the effort requires "additional dollars to pay for some investments in the short term" (Wolf, USA Today, 12/11).

Daschle said that "addressing our health care challenges" can help reduce personal debt, improve U.S. competitiveness and "pull our economy out of its current tailspin" (Connolly, Washington Post, 12/12).

During the press conference, "Obama didn't offer many specifics on how he expected to pay for health reform" but "pointed to better health information technology and disease prevention programs as ways to cut costs from the system," the Wall Street Journal's "Health Blog" reports. Obama also cited the Medicare Advantage program as an example of a program not "necessarily giving good bang for the buck" (Rubenstein [2], "Health Blog," Wall Street Journal, 12/11). Obama "has provided few details about his health care proposal" and "has declined to outline how his administration would pay for an overhaul that some estimate could exceed $100 billion a year," according to Long Island Newsday (Long Island Newsday, 12/12).

Role of Economic Stimulus Package
Obama and congressional Democrats have begun to "significantly expand the health provisions" in a $500 billion economic stimulus package that lawmakers hope to complete in early January 2009 to allow Obama to sign the legislation after he takes office, the Washington Post reports. According to the Post, Obama and congressional Democrats maintain that "pouring billions of dollars into an array of health programs will not only boost the economy but also make a down payment on promises of broader health care reform."

Obama has said that the package will include an additional $40 billion for state Medicaid programs over two years through an increase in the Federal Medical Assistance Percentage. In addition, the package likely will include funds for health information technology. The package also might include a reauthorization of SCHIP and an expansion of the 1986 Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act, which allows all employees who lose their jobs to retain employer-sponsored health insurance provided that they pay 102% of the premiums.

Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Chair Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) said, "Investing in the health of the American people is a crucial part of the nation's economic recovery," adding, "Modernizing our health care system through better use of information technology is the key to easing the heavy burden of health care costs." Senate Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus (D-Mont.) said, "It's very important that health IT be part of the economic recovery," adding, "It represents the beginning of health care reform" (Washington Post, 12/12).

Editorial
"In a noteworthy coincidence," Obama announced Daschle as his nominee for secretary of HHS the day after the first trial date was set for lawsuits by sickened 9/11 rescue and recovery workers, a New York Daily News editorial states, adding, "The juxtaposition was a reminder of how miserably the Bush administration failed men and women who became ill because they responded to Ground Zero." According to the editorial, Daschle "must do far better" than President Bush and HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt in addressing the needs of 9/11 workers.

The Daily News continues that re-opening a fund that provided payments to survivors of people killed on 9/11 and those who were injured that day "would eliminate the time-consuming process of working potentially 10,000 lawsuits through federal court." The editorial notes that the fund was closed "before thousands of responders developed symptoms of lung damage and other illnesses." Daschle should "take the lead" and ensure the lawsuits never have to be carried out by re-opening the fund, the editorial states (New York Daily News, 12/12).

Opinion Piece
"The deepening recession creates the opportunity for federal intervention and government experimentation of a scale unseen since the New Deal," Post columnist Charles Krauthammer writes. He continues, "Obama was quite serious when he said he was going to change the world," adding, "And now he has a national crisis, a personal mandate, a pliant Congress, a desperate public -- and at his disposal, the greatest pot of money in galactic history."

According to Krauthammer, Obama will "show himself ideologically" with the nearly $1 trillion stimulus package. "It is his one great opportunity to plant the seeds from everything he cares about: a new green economy, universal health care, a labor insurgence, government as benevolent private-sector 'partner,'" Krauthammer writes.

He adds that Obama's recent comment that addressing health care is a priority in overcoming economic challenges is "the perfect non sequitur that gives carte blanche to whatever health care reform and spending the Obama team dreams up." He concludes that Obama has "the money, the mandate and the moxie" to transform the U.S. (Krauthammer, Washington Post, 12/12).

Broadcast Coverage

• ABC's "World News Tonight" on Thursday reported on the Daschle nomination (Stark et al., "World News Tonight," ABC, 12/11).
  
  
• C-SPAN on Thursday broadcast a speech by Daschle about health care (C-SPAN, 12/11).
  
  
• C-SPAN on Friday reported on prospects for health care reform. The segment includes comments from Edward Howard, executive vice president of the Alliance for Health Reform; NPR health correspondent Julie Rovner; Robert Wood Johnson Foundation President and CEO Risa Lavizzo-Mourey; Mark Hayes, health policy director for the Senate Finance Committee; Jocelyn Moore, legislative assistant to Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.); John McDonough, senior adviser to Kennedy; and Charles Clapton, director of health policy for the Senate HELP Committee ("Washington Journal," C-SPAN, 12/12).
  
  
• Fox News' "Special Report with Brit Hume" on Thursday reported on the Daschle nomination (Hume, "Special Report with Brit Hume," Fox News, 12/11).
  
  
• NBC's "Nightly News" on Thursday reported on the Daschle nomination (Harwood, "Nightly News," NBC, 12/11).
  
  
• NPR's "Day to Day" on Thursday reported on the Obama press conference (Brand/Gonyea, "Day to Day," NPR, 12/11).
  
  
• PBS' "NewsHour with Jim Lehrer" on Thursday reported on the Daschle nomination (Bowser, "NewsHour with Jim Lehrer," PBS, 12/11).