Former Senator Tom Daschle was supposed to be our Secretary of Health and Human Services. But then, it turned out he had not paid all his taxes, and so he remains a private citizen, or better stated, an influential private citizen who still has President Obama’s ear on health care. From the story:
On his final workday before leaving for Camp David and Martha’s Vineyard, Obama talked healthcare strategy with former Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle. In a statement about the meeting, the White House said that the president and Daschle “agreed that substantive reform that lowers costs, reforms the insurance industry, and expands coverage is too important to wait another year or another administration.”
Here’s why that is a real problem for the president. Daschle believes in centralized rationing boards like the UK’s Orwellian named National Instutite for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), that tells the NHS what it can and can’t cover. From a Wall Street Journal article last January:
Tom Daschle [has] long advocated a U.S. approach modeled on the British agency, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE). Mr. Daschle argues that the only way to reduce spending is by allocating medical products based on “cost effectiveness.” He’s also called for a “federal health board” modeled on the Federal Reserve to rate medical products and create central controls on access.
Daschle wanting a US NICE and a centralized control over access strikes me as wanting US health care rationing, as I discussed here at SHS at the time. His advice is still clearly valued by the president. Consulting with Tom Daschle about the health care proposals isn’t a good way for the president to shake the “death panels” jitters of the American people.
P.S. The story quoted at the top of this post is generally about how Democratic strategists are upset that POTUS’s message about health care reform has been muddled. Mr. President, pay them no heed: It isn’t the salesmanship causing you so many problems–it’s the plan.
August 23rd, 2009 | 8:47 pm
Mr. Smith, I have noticed how the House bill gives a lot of power to the executive branch vis-a-vis various commissioners and committees and boards and it seems to me that it really is all a matter of trust. If you trust the government, then you want Obamacare, if you don’t then all this is a frankly scary power grab. But have those who trust Pres. Obama given thought to the power the next President will have? Perhaps a Republican president? They didn’t trust Pres. Bush.
Perhaps they really believe that the Democrats will be in power for 40 years, but I wonder….it is historical that utopian planning always ends in bloodshed because those who oppose the vision must be prevented from gaining power and following a different vision, a wrong vision, an illegitimate vision. Those who killed countless millions last century all had a vision and all just wanted the best society. (No, I do not think our current or past presidents resemble Hitler et al) The proposed plans do, however, all give the power to define which favored groups get treatment and which groups must sacrifice for cost containment. Oregon demonstrates that political game when what is covered depends on the popularity of the cause and connections of the lobby. What will people do if health care, a literal matter of life and death, is now dependent on an election?
Any plan to reform health care should seek to decentralize power and thus keep future elections from being even more winner-take-all than our current system. Abortion is a good example as compromise is near impossible until Roe is overturned or radically reinterpreted. So elections and appointments are overheated and distorted by the win/lose set up that makes so much hinge on a presidential election and encourages nasty partisanship. What kind of peaceful transfer of power is possible when people begin to think that an election loss means for them loss of life or denial of care?