Tom Daschle will head up Obama's HHS, and serves as point on health care
By David Neiwert Wednesday Nov 19, 2008 11:04am
DOWNLOAD (58)
PLAY (63)
So Tom Daschle is going to be Health and Human Services Secretary. Even the Republicans agree that it's a brilliant choice, since it will take someone with real knowledge of how to get things done in Congress to be an effective secretary here.
It's a key position because it means Daschle is going to be the point man on Obama's plans for health-care reform. Daschle already has laid out where he's going, and it's a decidedly progressive direction -- though, notably, it still falls short of a single-payer system.
Login or Register to post comments.
So we'll be drinking to each other's health
Until we're sick?
...though, notably, it still falls short of a single-payer system.
What, ya think? Golly wow.
Lookit, folks, it's this simple. Health INSURANCE is an unnecessary, expensive, corpoRat boondoggle, designed for only one purpose: to extract as much as possible of the Average Murkin's disposable income for the purpose of consolidating the power of the INDUSTRY.
Health insurance companies are parasites. They contribute NOTHING, they only extract.
When the human body is afflicted with parasites (think tapeworms, etc), we try to administer treatments that will KILL parasites. Health insurance corporations are the tape-worms of the body politic.
We need to KILL the health-insurance industry. Just KILL it...Nice people use the term "eradicate." I'd settle for that...
CorpoRAT...I like it.
When I tell friends and family that health insurance corporations need to be destroyed...they pretty much agree with me, especially after I tell them that they have inserted themselves between doctors and patients in order to siphon as much money as they can get.
Sanity and competence returning soon to our government! I can hardly wait.
Allard (R-CO)
Allen (R-VA)
Baucus (D-MT)
Bayh (D-IN)
Bennett (R-UT)
Biden (D-DE)
Bond (R-MO)
Breaux (D-LA)
Brownback (R-KS)
Bunning (R-KY)
Burns (R-MT)
Campbell (R-CO)
Cantwell (D-WA)
Carnahan (D-MO)
Carper (D-DE)
Cleland (D-GA)
Clinton (D-NY)
Cochran (R-MS)
Collins (R-ME)
Craig (R-ID)
Crapo (R-ID)
Daschle (D-SD)
DeWine (R-OH)
Dodd (D-CT)
Domenici (R-NM)
Dorgan (D-ND)
Edwards (D-NC)
Ensign (R-NV)
Enzi (R-WY)
Feinstein (D-CA)
Fitzgerald (R-IL)
Frist (R-TN)
Gramm (R-TX)
Grassley (R-IA)
Gregg (R-NH)
Hagel (R-NE)
Harkin (D-IA)
Hatch (R-UT)
Helms (R-NC)
Hollings (D-SC)
Hutchinson (R-AR)
Hutchison (R-TX)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Johnson (D-SD)
Kerry (D-MA)
Kohl (D-WI)
Kyl (R-AZ)
Landrieu (D-LA)
Lieberman (D-CT)
Lincoln (D-AR)
Lott (R-MS)
Lugar (R-IN)
McCain (R-AZ)
McConnell (R-KY)
Miller (D-GA)
Murkowski (R-AK)
Nelson (D-FL)
Nelson (D-NE)
Nickles (R-OK)
Reid (D-NV)
Roberts (R-KS)
Rockefeller (D-WV)
Santorum (R-PA)
Schumer (D-NY)
Sessions (R-AL)
Shelby (R-AL)
Smith (R-NH)
Smith (R-OR)
Snowe (R-ME)
Specter (R-PA)
Stevens (R-AK)
Thomas (R-WY)
Thompson (R-TN)
Thurmond (R-SC)
Torricelli (D-NJ)
Voinovich (R-OH)
Warner (R-VA)
Where is the new blood? Where is the CHANGE?????
Same old faces, same old bullshit?
Remember Daeschle saying we needed "acceptance" when Bush "won"?
Change? Where? When? How?
Kissinger endorses Clinton for SoS.....change?
Please.
there is a pretty good chance that one or both of them are using the term merely as a rhetorical trope, and that nothing, in fact, will change other than the 'appearances.'
So you want someone that has to be told where the Congressional latrine is?
And the canteen?
And not confuse them?
i think carter tried that...worked out good...didnt it?
Aren't neophytes fans of that really stuuuuupidd movie The Matrix?
I love that movie!! What's up with that??
For all the people who are bitching, moaning, whining and complaining about change, CAN YOU WAIT UNTIL SOMEONE DOES SOMETHING??
What people do you want in senior POLITICAL positions? People who have never held political positions or those who do not have any POLITICAL clout to get anything done?
Honest to christ...wait until they DO something.
they are doing something!!
selecting cabinet positions from a rogue's gallery of war supporting DLC dems who are PART OF THE PROBLEM!!!!
Obama has already voted for the FISA amendment, supported the bailout, brokered the Liebermann acquittal, and will certainly put Clinton in the State Department.
do you expect old dogs to do new tricks?
i don't
That would be the LEADERSHIP factor.
We shall see what comes to pass, but until something happens, I wish everyone would STFU. You are bitching about NOTHING.
And yes, I hated FISA. Would Obama have been elected without voting for that?
Would Obama have been elected voting against the bailout? Especially if all the talking heads did nothing but bitch about it.
Obama cannot do anything unless and until he was elected.
So, yeah, I do expect them dogs to now do flip-flops.
Ms. Joanne, you are often a voice of balance and of reason on this blog. Any opinion on how long Obama should be given post Jan. 20 to show his true colors? I would argue that his decision to charge the previous administration with specific crimes will tell us more about his stand on the rule of law and of the constitution versus his approaches to other areas including the economy. If the latter gets the greater part of his and his appointees time and energy in lieu of having his new attorney-general seek indictments of you know who then we will know that he is many shades closer to another corporatist, private sector supporter instead of a president for all of the people.
us wait until he makes a policy decision.
Is that asking for too much?
Right now, he cannot (and will not) do anything. As he has said...there is only one president at a time, and right now, he ain't it.
I know I sound like a bitch about this, but really, he hasn't done anything yet. Once we start to see how he will handle policy decisions and how his people will handle those same things, believe me, I will be the first one on the phone bitching (and sending emails and letters). Until which time I actually have something to bitch about, I am saving my energy to see what he will do.
As to crimes, it is highly unlikely anything will happen. As much as that pains me, I have what I think is a realistic expectation that Bush and his fucking cronies will never be held accountable by anyone within the US. The world court (which, thanks to Bush) has no jurisdiction, either. I hate it but I will be highly impressed should Obama actually go after Bush for his many, many crimes.
It just ain't gonna happen.
Paul Krugman
Van Jones
Dennis Kucinich
Kathleen Sebelius
Russ Feingold
Marcy Kaptur
Jennifer Granholm
to name a few inspirational leaders with 21st Century vision and NO blood on their hands.
We have the hand we were dealt, perhaps not the one you want, such is life.
You cannot change that. You either deal with it or you spend your entire life bitching.
I know where you stand...and you know where I stand.
...and no blood on their hands.
is not the important thing here. We should remember that the Pinochet precedent authorize ANY European Court in ANY member-State to issue an arrest warrant against any US citizen who is deemed to have participated or abetted (while being an official of the Go-vermin) the implementation, execution or diffusion of policies regarding torture.
So, if a guy like John Woo was going to a law Conference in Prague, a French (or British or Spaniard) judge could issue a warrant to Interpol for his arrest at any port of entry in the European territory. And presidential pardons and likewise legal tools have no sway whatsoever in European Courts.
If I was John Woo, David Addington or Dick Cheney's (to name justa few) legal counsel, I would advise them to think twice before traveling outside the US. And BTW, IIRC, there is no statute of limitation in these cases.
...did I read that there were about 7000 job openings in the new government?
Are you judging change by the paltry dozen or so job announcements we've heard to date?
Sort of jumping the gun, aren't you?
When you can't get elected or re-elected, you must be appointed or anointed. Will Tom take on the insurance companies? We spend so much for administration and CEO bonuses, that we get little value for our buck. We are insured when we are young and healthy by insurance companies so that they can make big profits. Medicare insures the 20% of the people with 80% of the health care bills. As a physician, I know that the insurance companies treat their providers as badly they treat their customers. We need real change. We need single payer!
Dean deserved this post. He's bold, determined and confident. He's a doctor with a history of making groundbreaking health care programs work. He helped the Dems win these elections. Not just Obama but countless House, Senate and local elecions as well. He wanted HHS, he would have kicked ass and should have been given a chance. The Obama mirror is already starting to look a lot less like me than it did.
No comment?
Anything less than a single-payer system is probably not going to be "the change we need".
Yet another blundering appointment by Obama.
Emanuel.
Clinton.
Daschle.
letting Lieberman slide.
Argh.
Nothing like a slap in the face to let people know where they stand.
...that people aren't excited about this pick, but then the pick itself is no surprise either. When Obama chose Biden, all I could think was "What a conventional thinker." (Obama, that is.) His other choices are revealing the same unimaginative, same old-same old side of Obama. Fashioning legislation that is so watered down Republicans are eager to jump on board is not meaningful change. In fact, it's not change at all.
At the end of the campaign, it was really painful listening to Obama claim that McCain's health care proposal would "kill our employer based" health care system. Is it really possible that he doesn't know how important it is for that system to die?
I voted for the guy and it's important that he not fail, but I fear his success will be but a small part of what this country needs.
Unfortunately, the stage has been set: a single-payer system is the Marxist solution. Daschle -- the South Dakota Dynamo -- will never get behind it.
...and it has a forward written by Barak Obama. It is entitled "Critical-What We Can Do About The Healthcare Crisis"
Pub: Thomas Dunne 2-19-08.
He wrote this book out of personal concern and a sense of responsibility on this issue, not because he knew last Feb when it was released that Obama would win the election and choose him to head HHS.
He wasn't that bad a guy and have thought his seat was STOLEN from him quite neatly and viciously in '02 (I think that was when)after the thugs dragged him over the coals and through the mud alot like Edwards and Spitzer. Little was said about all those seats swiped, remember? The MSM did a pretty good job making sure that one sped past us, which is the only way any good thieves leave a crime scene.
Give Daschle a break. He's a decent guy and cares enough to take it upon himself to independently explore this topic.
So far as single-payer healthcare, or any healthcare...ask Detroit where that money went.
He's an advocate for letting everyone buy into Medicare which is pretty similar to Obama's position. It's not universal single-payer (Medicare for all), but is a step in the right direction and might be the only path to getting there given all the pushback it's sure to receive from the "socialized medicine" whiners.
I don't think it's reasonable to hold Daschle's war vote against him because 1) SD is a Republican state (a lot of Dems from Dem states also voted that way) and 2) HHS won't be involved in foreign policy.
Daschle also played a key role in overturning the immunity for vaccine makers concerning specifically the mercury based substance thimerosal snuck into the Homeland Security in the middle of the night by Dick Armey.
Daschle knows the scope. He smelled something fishy when pharmaceutical companies and government agencies said "nothing is wrong with mercury in vaccines but hey, sneak in a provision against lawsuits just in case ok"
Login or Register to post comments.