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A new nominee for Health and Human Services

Post on February 3, 2009 by 1 Comment »

Now that Tom Daschle has withdrawn his name from consideration as the next HHS Secretary, President Obama has to find a new nominee. Luckily, he doesn’t have to look far for a great pick.

Jeanne Lambrew was slated to report to Daschle as deputy director of the new Office of Health Care Reform. Obama should just give Lambrew a promotion.

Lambrew has a PhD in health policy from UNC. That North Carolina connection could help blunt criticism that Obama does not have any Southerners in his cabinet. And Lambrew has great progressive credentials as an expert on the uninsured, Medicare, and Medicaid.

She has worked mostly at universities and think tanks instead of consulting with high-rolling clients. I’ll bet Lambrew even drives her own car. What more could Obama want? As long as she is current on her taxes, that is.

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Comments (Closed):1

  1. Rob Schofield
    February 3, 2009 at 3:53 pm

    John Nichols has an excellent column today in his blog for The Nation.

    “The scandal over Daschle’s lavish lifestyle and failure to pay taxes simply emphasized why the former Senate Majority Leader was exactly the wrong choice to serve in the administration of a Democratic president who aspires to make a break with the worst of the compromises that characterized his party during the Bush-Cheney era….

    Obama should have developed doubts about Daschle’s value as a political operative last June when, despite the former senator’s prodding, South Dakota Democratic primary voters backed Clinton.

    But Obama was appreciative of Daschle’s early support, as became obvious when the weird pick of the former majority leader to serve at HHS was made. (Despite the fact that he recently wrote a self-serving book on the issue, no one remembered Daschle as a particularly serious player when it came to health care issues. And he certainly was not a supporter of real reform, as has been noted in this space.)

    Unfortunately, Daschle’s dubious record did not slow his progress.

    It took an old-fashioned scandal unpaid taxes to knock the former senator out of contention for the powerful post he coveted.

    No one — or, at least, no one who is invested either in securing real health care reform or seeing an Obama presidency succeed — should mourn Daschle’s departure.

    Daschle was always a better fit with Bush’s administration than Obama’s.”