Large Role
"Daschle could end up being the point man on any efforts to overhaul the country's health care delivery and insurance system, a tall order, health policy experts say, given the current economic situation," the New York Times' "The Caucus" reports (Cooper, "The Caucus," New York Times, 11/19). According to the Wall Street Journal, Daschle "is expected to play an important role in moving Mr. Obama's ambitious health care agenda through Congress" (Meckler/Weisman, Wall Street Journal, 11/20). "Daschle has positioned himself as Obama's central adviser on efforts to dramatically expand health care coverage next year, while at the same time lowering costs," according to the Washington Post's "44" (Connolly/Cillizza, "44," Washington Post, 11/19). Senate Democrats said that Daschle "would greatly help with efforts to overhaul the health care system next year," CQ Today reports (Wayne, CQ Today, 11/19).

On Wednesday, the Obama transition team announced that Daschle will lead a transition policy working group on health care (Cooper/Baker, New York Times, 11/20). According to the Times' "The Caucus," Daschle "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" ("The Caucus," New York Times, 11/19).

Background
In February, Daschle wrote a book about health care policy titled "Critical: What We Can Do About the Health Care Crisis." In the book, Daschle proposed to establish a board modeled on the Federal Reserve Board to "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" (Goldstein, "Health Blog," Wall Street Journal, 11/19).

He serves as a senior fellow and a board member at the Center for American Progress. In addition, Daschle serves on the advisory boards of Intermedia Partners and BP America, as well as on the boards of CB Richard Ellis, Mascoma, Prime BioSolutions, The Freedom Forum, the Mayo Clinic, the LBJ Foundation, and the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs. Daschle also is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations (AP/San Francisco Chronicle, 11/19). He co-chaired the ONE Vote '08 campaign to address health care and poverty issues in developing nations (Rhee, "Political Intelligence," Boston Globe, 11/19).

Reaction From Lawmakers
House Rules Committee Chair Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) said that she hopes Daschle can "go down deep and clean out some of the 19th-century ideas at HHS" implemented by the Bush administration (Bellantoni, Washington Times, 11/20).

Daschle "knows health care, he knows the Congress and the rhythms of the Senate in particular," Senate Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus (D-Mont.) said (Talev, McClatchy/Philadelphia Inquirer, 11/20).

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said, "Tom Daschle sees this as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity," adding, "On the premier domestic issue of our time, the president-elect sees Tom Daschle with the skills and abilities to bring people together and get this over the finish line" (Connolly, Washington Post, 11/20).

Republican National Committee spokesperson Alex Conant said, "Barack Obama is filling his administration with long-time Washington insiders. Since losing his Senate seat, Tom Daschle has worked for a major lobbying firm. For voters hoping to see new faces and fewer lobbyist connections in government, Daschle's nomination will be another disappointment. Obama promised to change America's health care system, but his nominee to be secretary is no change agent" ("The Swamp," Chicago Tribune, 11/19).

Additional Reaction
Kaiser Family Foundation President and CEO Drew Altman said, "You wouldn't appoint Tom Daschle to be secretary" of HHS "if you weren't serious about making health care reform a priority" (Hook/Levey, Baltimore Sun, 11/20).

Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA, said, "Sen. Daschle has a deep commitment to securing high-quality, affordable health care for everyone in our nation," adding, "His new leadership position confirms that the incoming Obama administration has made health care reform a top and early priority for action in 2009" (AP/San Francisco Chronicle, 11/19).

AARP Executive Vice President Nancy LeaMond said, "Senator Daschle would bring a wealth of experience to HHS as the new Congress and administration begin their work to solve our health care crisis" (Reuters, 11/19).

Former Rep. John Porter (R-Ill.), chair of Research! America, said of Daschle, "He'll do an outstanding job" (AP/San Francisco Chronicle, 11/19).

Broadcast Coverage

• ABC's "World News Tonight" on Wednesday reported on the Daschle nomination (Stark et al., "World News Tonight," ABC, 11/19).
  
  
• CNN's "CNN Newsroom" on Wednesday reported on the Daschle nomination (Henry, "CNN Newsroom," CNN, 11/19).
  
  
• CNN's "Lou Dobbs Tonight" on Wednesday reported on possible ties between Daschle and the pharmaceutical industry (Dobbs, "Lou Dobbs Tonight," CNN, 11/19). A transcript of the show is available online.
  
  
• CNN's "Situation Room" on Wednesday reported on the Daschle nomination (Blitzer, "Situation Room," CNN, 11/19). A transcript of the show is available online.
  
  
• Fox News' "Special Report with Brit Hume" on Wednesday reported on the Daschle nomination (Angle, "Special Report with Brit Hume," Fox News, 11/19).
  
  
• NPR's "Day to Day" on Wednesday reported on the Daschle nomination (Brand/Elving, "Day to Day," 11/19).
  
  
• NPR's "Morning Edition" on Thursday reported on the Daschle nomination (Rovner/Inskeep, "Morning Edition," NPR, 11/20).

Pay-Go
Kennedy and Baucus both have said that a health care overhaul bill likely would not include offsets for its full cost. Grassley on Wednesday said, "I think that for a lot of us, [pay-go] is a big issue," referring to rules that all measures passed include funding offsets. Baucus said, "You have to invest in order to reap long-term savings," adding, "That's understood by senators; that's understood by outside groups. I talked to [Congressional Budget Office Director] Peter Orszag ... [and] that's understood clearly by him" (Armstrong, CQ Today, 11/19).

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) on Tuesday said that while a health care system overhaul could increase the national deficit in the short-term, in the long-term it would stop adding to the deficit, according to The Hill. "Hoyer's comments are notable because he is considered the chief advocate of the [Blue Dog Coalition] and the pay-go policy in the House Democratic leadership," The Hill reports. Hoyer said, "Our objective is going to be (to) have a pay-go compliant policy over the longer term," but that "may not be possible in the short term, given where we are." He noted that addressing health care problems and inefficiencies could reduce costs and limit the impact of an overhaul on the deficit. In addition, Hoyer said, "When it comes to health care, we can no longer think of entitlement reform and expanded access as two separate issues" (Soraghan, The Hill, 11/18).

At a Finance Committee hearing on Wednesday, Baucus said a health care system overhaul "must be part of any successful economic recovery plan." He said, "Health care costs and the economy are linked: The key challenges of our health care system are high costs, low quality and insufficient access," factors that affect family budgets, competitiveness of U.S. businesses abroad and government spending (Carey, CQ CQ HealthBeat, 11/19).

Dingell, Waxman
House Democrats on Thursday voted 137 to 122 name House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chair Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) as chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, over current Chair John Dingell (D-Mich.), New York Timesreports (Broder [1], New York Times, 11/20). After the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee on Wednesday voted 25 to 22 to nominate Waxman as chair of the committee, the final vote went to the full Democratic Caucus (Bendavid, Wall Street Journal, 11/20). According to the Times, Waxman "has a long record of leadership on health care issues" (Broder [1], New York Times, 11/20).

Waxman in a statement said he was "running for the chairmanship ... because we have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to advance health care, achieve energy independence and tackle climate change" (Broder [2], New York Times, 11/20).

Opinion Piece, Letter to the Editor
The Washington Post on Wednesday published an opinion piece and on Thursday published a responding letter to the editor focusing on the race for House Energy and Commerce Committee chair. Summaries appear below.

• Harold Meyerson: The two reasons Waxman "would be the better" Energy and Commerce chair are that "he is probably the House's most accomplished legislator in three issues that are high on the agendas of the nation and President-elect Obama: universal health care, global warming and enhanced consumer protections," and he "is a legislative genius," columnist Meyerson writes in the Post. He continues that Waxman "steer[ed] to passage the bills that gave rise to the generic drug industry, required uniform nutrition labels on food, heightened standards of care at nursing homes, created screening programs for breast and cervical cancer, provided health care for people with HIV/AIDS" and "expanded Medicaid coverage to the poor." In addition, Meyerson writes, "In the midst of the Reagan era's cutbacks, Waxman expanded the number of working poor eligible for Medicaid a stunning 24 times" and "consistently won key Republican backing for these regulatory and programmatic expansions." He concludes, "Obama needs an ally on the Hill who can craft bills and obtain votes for the change he's pledged to deliver. He needs a master legislator. He needs Henry Waxman (Meyerson, Washington Post, 11/19).
  
  
• Rep. Baron Hill (D-Ind.): "I feel obligated to clear up a few things" regarding the Meyerson piece, which "was riddled with falsehoods -- chiefly the assertion that Rep. John Dingell has not been an effective legislator" during his time as chair of the energy and commerce panel, Hill writes in a Post letter to the editor. He adds that Dingell's "proposals reflect what voters have demanded: more jobs, better health care and a green future." According to Hill, "Dingell is committed to achieving these goals while promoting economic recovery and protecting our Democratic majority -- which is essential for seeing quick results." With "Dingell's leadership, we can ... achieve the consensus necessary to implement sound policy solutions and signal to Americans that we heard their call for change." The letter continues, "Meyerson was correct, however, that Barack Obama 'needs an ally on the Hill who can craft bills and obtain votes for the change he's pledged to deliver,'" and Obama "has this in Chairman Dingell" (Hill, Washington Post, 11/20).

Advocates, Industry Offer Recommendations
Health care advocates and industry leaders have begun to offer recommendations for health care reform legislation that they expect President-elect Barack Obama and Congress to address next year, the Wall Street Journal reports. According to the Journal, in a "stark contrast" to health care reform efforts in the 1990s, a "wide variety of interests groups are rooting for it to succeed rather than plotting to kill it" (Meckler, Wall Street Journal, 11/20).

Health Care for American NOW! on Tuesday launched a television advertisement that asked Obama to meet his campaign promises on health care despite the current economic downturn (Rhee, "Political Intelligence," Boston Globe, 11/18).

In addition, some large pharmaceutical companies have begun "crafting plans to expand health insurance coverage and cut the escalating costs of care," Reuters reports (Richwine/Pierson, Reuters, 11/19). On Wednesday, leaders of labor unions during a seminar sponsored by the Connecticut Health Advancement and Research Trust discussed the need for health care reform (Holahan, Harford Courant, 11/20).

CNN's "Lou Dobbs Tonight" on Wednesday examined the differences between the health care proposals announced by Obama and lawmakers and the effect that those plans might have for U.S. residents (Pilgrim, "Lou Dobbs Tonight," CNN, 11/19).

Editorials

• Christian Science Monitor: "Nearly all the great issues facing Obama involve science or technology as part of the solution," a Monitor editorial states. According to the editorial, "Obama has pledged to 'restore integrity' to U.S. science policy by making decisions informed by the best available evidence," as well as increase funding for scientific research. In addition, Obama will "need to deal with the promise and perils of biotechnology and nanotechnology," among other issues, the editorial states. The editorial concludes that his science adviser should "sift through the blizzard of data and ensure that the president has before him viable choices based on sound science" (Christian Science Monitor, 11/20).
  
  
• Wall Street Journal: "Now liberals think the political moment has finally arrived to achieve ... government-run health care," based on the health care reform proposal released by Senate Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus (D-Mont.) last week and the selection of the "very liberal former Senate warhorse" Tom Daschle to become the new HHS secretary, a Journal editorial states. According to the editorial, "the reality is that the Baucus-Obama plan would be extraordinarily expensive as it slowly but relentlessly grew the government's share of health spending." The editorial concludes, "Either Senator Baucus and President-elect Obama are making promises that can't possibly be kept. Or they're not being honest about their plans for U.S. health care" (Wall Street Journal, 11/20).

Opinion Pieces

• Elizabeth Carpenter/Sarah Axeen, Philadelphia Inquirer: "While there is no question that the next administration needs to take immediate action to stabilize our financial and housing markets, there is a compelling economic case for keeping health care reform at the top of the agenda," Carpenter and Axeen, who work on health care policy at the New America Foundation, write in an Inquirer opinion piece. They write, "Our economy cannot recover if Americans need to spend a large and increasing share of their income on health insurance," adding, "We know that the uninsured get sick unnecessarily, stay sick longer and are less productive in the workplace." They continue that while there is a "compelling moral case" for reforming the health care system, "making sure every American has quality health coverage is also an economic imperative." Carpenter and Axeen conclude, "The economic and social costs of failing to reform our health system are high," adding, "We must reform our nation's health care system -- not despite our economic crisis, but precisely because of the impact it has on U.S. workers and businesses" (Carpenter/Axeen, Philadelphia Inquirer, 11/20).
  
  
• John Merline, USA Today: President-elect Barack Obama's vow to cut health insurance premiums by $2,500 a year is "one campaign promise [he] is virtually guaranteed to break" because the math that the campaign used to come up with that number was "fuzzy," Merline, a former editorial writer for USA Today, writes in an opinion piece. Even if Obama is able to reduce health care spending by $81 billion through efforts aimed at improving disease management and care coordination, "he'd still be hard-pressed to deliver those premium cuts, because other parts of his plan would almost certainly drive up costs," Merline writes. He concludes, "Obama's promise that he can deliver more health care to more people while painlessly cutting costs is just not possible. At least, not in the real world" (Merline, USA Today, 11/20).