The transition team for President-elect Barack Obama has indicated that former Sen. Tom Daschle (D - S. D.) has accepted an invitation to serve as Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services in the new administration if, as expected, he is confirmed by the Senate.
In an exclusive interview with hfm magazine, Sen. Daschle said, “There’s something wrong when a business like General Motors spends more on health care than they do on steel.” He thinks it is time to stop requiring that businesses manage health care, believing instead “that it is the responsibility of the country to help those who don’t have the means to pay for [health care] for themselves or their families.” “Leadership also means going on the offensive,” Sen. Daschle has told HFMA members, in a sign of what may be coming in the new administration. “Acting swiftly and in the early--and strongest--days of the next presidency will be the best way to not get caught in the stasis of the status quo.”
Sen. Daschle spent 26 years in Congress from 1978 to 2005, including eight years in the U.S. House of Representatives (1978-1986) and 18 years in the U.S. Senate (1986-2005). He served as Minority Leader of the Senate from 1994 to 2001 and from 2003 to 2005, and Majority Leader from 2001 to 2003. Since leaving the Senate, he has served as an advisor to the law firm of Alston & Bird in Washington, D.C., where he provides strategic advice on public policy issues such as health care, energy, financial services, trade, agriculture, tax policy, and telecommunications. Earlier this year, Sen. Daschle authored Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis (Thomas Dunne, 2008), which lays out his proposal for major reform of the U.S. healthcare system.
