Besides HHS, Daschle to Oversee Health Reform Office
Food
Tom Daschle is expected to officially get President-elect Barack Obama’s nod as secretary of Health and Human Services today. He’ll also get a second charge overseeing a new White House Office of Health Reform, the Associated Press is reporting.
The idea is to put Daschle in clear position to head up the administration’s push for health reform, an unnamed Democratic official told the AP.
The AP also notes that the office’s deputy director will be Jeanne Lambrew, who helped Daschle write a book about health care reform and is currently a senior fellow at the left-leaning think tank Center for American Progress.
Lambrew’s bio notes that she does research on the uninsured, Medicaid, Medicare and long-term care. She worked on health policy in the Clinton White House and, among other things, focused on the Children’s Health Insurance Program, a government insurance program for children in low-income families.
As Daschle pushes toward universal coverage, the AP reported a few days back that one of his challenges will be to avoid the mistakes of the Clintons — namely, keeping the process too secretive. Openness is part of the idea of his push to get people to participate in the process by asking them to brainstorm about health reform and holiday-season house parties.
Photo: Associated Press
Thursday, December 11th, 2008 at 2:00 pm and is filed under Food. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
Hope President-elect Obama chooses the right persons for the governmental positions. But I guess both Daschle and Lambrew are good choices for the health related positions.