Health Care Reform

(Newser) - Barack Obama’s pick for Secretary of Health and Human Services promised today a bipartisan effort to reform health care, the New York Times reports. “When it comes to health care, we really are in it together,” Tom Daschle said during Senate confirmation hearings, where chairman Ted Kennedy praised the former South Dakota Democratic senator as “just the person for the job.” More »

(Newser) - Tom Daschle, Barack Obama’s health-care honcho, saw the 1993 Clinton-care debacle up close; his strategy for passing reform this time around is basically Anything But Clinton, reports Politico. The Clinton push, Daschle thinks, came too far into the first term, and was too exclusive, presenting Congress a completed proposal without seeking input or pushing for it at the grassroots level. More »

(Newser) - The Obama stimulus plan will include a $7 billion provision intended to force states to extend unemployment insurance to part-time workers, reports the  Wall Street Journal . A separate plan subsidizes COBRA payments and allows uninsured workers who get laid off to buy into Medicaid, and all three measures are riling critics. "Those aren't stimulus," said the ranking Republican on the House Budget Committee. "Those are ideological accomplishments in the guise of economic stimulus." More »

(Newser) - One Bush project that President-elect Obama isn’t likely to overturn is the expansion of funding for nonprofit medical clinics in underserved areas. The push—unequalled since Lyndon Johnson’s war on poverty—to provide accessible health care for the poor and uninsured was one of the campaign promises President Bush described as “compassionate conservatism,” the New York Times reports. More »

(Newser) - Tom Daschle, Barack Obama's incoming Director of Health and Human Services, has an aggressive strategy for reforming health care, and no intentions of seeing it fizzle the way the Clintons' efforts did in 1993, reports the Los Angeles Times . The key will be reeling in major health-care interest groups, along with members of Congress, and forcefully heading off the kind of opposition campaign that scared voters last time around.  More »

(Newser) - As expected, President-elect Barack Obama today nominated Tom Daschle as Secretary of Health and Human Services, CQ Politics reports. Daschle will also head the new White House Office of Health Reform, geared toward providing near-universal health care to Americans. Daschle “will be responsible not just for implementing our health care plan,” Obama said. “He will also be lead architect.” More »

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