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Czar Thomas
CZAR THOMAS....Steve Benen passes along the news that Tom Daschle is Obama's pick both for Secretary of Health and Human Services — a cabinet position — and White House health "czar" — a more traditionally West Wing-ish kind of thing. Steve is pleased:
The Daschle announcement reinforces the notion that an Obama administration is going to take the push for healthcare reform very seriously. A senior Democratic official told Mike Allen, "Of all the proposals that Obama wants to enact, health care requires the most input and tough negotiations and shepherding. No one knows the House and Senate like Tom Daschle."
Indeed, the Daschle news makes me even more encouraged about the prospect of a healthcare package actually passing. Emanuel is insisting that an incremental approach won't do; Baucus and Kennedy are laying the groundwork on the Hill; and Daschle has been preparing for this fight for quite a while.
I'm not really a fan of the whole "czar" thing, but if we're gong to have a healthcare czar it makes sense to give the position to the HHS secretary. What's more, if Hillary Clinton decides to stay in the Senate, this would set up a pretty interesting contrast with 1993: Hillary would be shepherding healthcare reform from the legislative side this time and Daschle would be doing it from the executive branch. It's so crazy it might work!
Anyway: I agree with Steve. This is good news. Daschle is plainly dedicated to healthcare reform, he understands the legislative realities as well as anyone, and Obama is sending a pretty clear message that he plans to push full steam ahead on this. Keep your fingers crossed.
This raises the question of why everyone is so excited about his plan to have a cabinet-level position for an Urban Policy director. Don't we already have a Department of Housing and Urban Development? (Granted, their "brand" is in the sewer, but still.)
Would opening the federal employees' health plan to all U.S. residents, and paying to enroll them if they aren't covered (or paying the difference if they want to switch) -- as Obama described during the debates -- even require legislation? Why wouldn't just executive orders be able to do that?
I also understand Waxman has defeated Dingell. Considering how long Waxman thwarted the subway to the sea (in L.A. politics, the Westside always wins, just as Manhattan below 96th Street invariably prevails in NYC politics), I'm not necessarily sure this is a good thing.
"I'm not really a fan of the whole "czar" thing"
yes; has there *ever* been a czar appointed by a u.s. president who accomplished anything like what they were intended to accomplish?
i believe they have an unbroken record of failure. matched by the unbroken record of defeats in various "war on"s that administrations have waged (war on poverty, war on drugs, war on terror, etc.)
first use of "czar" to describe a high-level white house appointee? i believe it was jas. schlesinger in '77, appointed by carter as "energy czar".
and that, of course, was the end of this nation's troubles with energy.
can anyone cite an earlier 'czar' in this d.c. usage?
I don't think the health czar thing is a new position. It's just an odd designation for administration point man. He won't just be running HHS bureaucracy, he'll be the admin's face on all things health care.
kid bitzer: that would be Richard Nixon's Energy Czar in '73. William Simon, Federal Energy Office.
http://www.reason.com/news/show/36081.html
Given the way things are going in the MidEast, we would be better off with a "Sultan" than a "Czar."
Or at least an "Emir."
If Igor Volsky likes him, he can't be all bad. http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2008/11/19/daschle-hhs/
Read my lips: No New Czars.
I'm a financial planner. The thought that I might be able to even discuss the possibility of somewhat affordable health care with retiring clients who are too young for medicare is .......
dare I say it .......
hopeful!
All I do now is acknowledge the pain of $800+/month insurance premiums for individuals, that typically increase 10% or more per year.
It's clear that Obama want healthcare reform to happen. But it looks as if he plans to delegate this one. Hillary, Kennedy and probably Daschle know more about it that he does, and the plan he campaigned on is clear and hasn't changed in a year, so it's a reasonable decision for him to concentrate on the economy, climate change and GITMO where there are more policy decisions still in the air.
It would feel great to be surprised, but I see the Daschle appointment as another indication that Hillary Clinton will be squeezed out of health care entirely. If it's true that Kennedy and Baucus have frozen her out within the Senate, then Daschle will clearly cut off any access she might have to the President. And what would explain all this effort to keep her away from health care reform? I can't think of anything except that Kennedy and Daschle (and presumably Obama) have coalesced behind the Baucus plan (Baucus and the Republican congressman whose name I can't recall). That means that the best feature of Clinton's health plan is out. It means no movement, not even baby steps, toward combining the federal employee plan with Medicare to provide (someday) universal single-payer health care. It means keeping the focus on insurance companies. I don't want health insurance. I want health care. That is seeming less and less like the Obama plan.
The entire Healthcare system needs to be overhauled and fraud and duplication reduced. Then there is the multiplicity of special interests -everything from diabetic supplies to motorized wheelchairs and ambulance services for the handicapped-To say the program has gotten completely out of hand is to say nothing-Billions have been and are being wasted-Administrative costs are astronomical and no one wants to tackle the highly controversial job of setting down rules and regulations other than the Private Insurance Companies who have controlled Medical Costs!
Yes, how'd that whole "Czar" thing work out for Russian anyway?
George Mitchell was Senate Majority Leader during the 1993-1994 health reform debacle, not Tom Daschle.