Sebelius and DeParle
As TPM reported the day Tom Daschle dropped out, Howard Dean was never in play to be the HHS Secretary and Kathleen Sebelius was a leading candidate. It looks like we'll get Sebelius named to the HHS slot later today. As Kansas's governor, she's got a mixed record on health care, as the New York Times notes today. Can she fare better with the much more difficult job ahead? Interestingly, Nancy Ann DeParle, a friend and spouse of New York Times reporter Jason DeParle, seems headed for the White House health care czar job. (Daschle was originally going to hold both positions.) As the Times notes:
From 1997 to 2000, Ms. DeParle was administrator of the Health Care Financing Administration, now known as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.Ms. DeParle has extensive experience in the business world that has prompted questions from some liberals and from some of the people who vet appointments for Mr. Obama. Ms DeParle is now or has been a director of huge health care companies including Medco Health Solutions, a pharmacy benefit manager; Cerner, a supplier of health information technology; Boston Scientific, a medical device company; DaVita, which runs kidney dialysis centers; and Triad Hospitals.
A Rhodes Scholar and veteran of Tennessee policy and politics, she's as well versed as anyone to take on the challenge of getting health care passed. No word if Jeanne Lambrew will stay at the White House or move on to HHS. Lambrew is the University of Texas professor who was Tom Daschle's intellectual guru on health care issues. The two wrote a book together and she was to be his deput in the White House health care office. If she stays at the White House or goes to HHS, she'll have huge influence. She was one of the designers of the State Childrens Health Insurance Program, SCHIP, that President Obama recently expanded.
Josh
Elana
Matt
Eric
I know some of these "vetting" problems are Obama's fault, but come on. Given the way Washington has worked since, well, forever, to suddenly expect him to find experienced, competent administrators with no taint of Washington, or even of corporate America, is ridiculous.
The most we should hope for is that he rejects those with obvious conflicts of interest (e.g., those currently lobbying the goverment on issues under their prospective jurisdiction), and to institute rules that that prevent that worst aspects of "revolving door" behavior so prevalent in Washington.
Expecting virginal purity of people needed to influence legislators and opinion makers to support Obama's policies will only doom those efforts to failure.
Yes, Obama may have overstated the need to purge lobbyists from Washington culture in order to score political points. It's time to get over it, and let him nominate the most effective people for getting the work of his administration accomplished.
March 2, 2009 11:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
Objecting to a total creature of the health care- industrial complex like DeParle can only be caricatured, rather than characterized, as "expecting virginal purity". If the kinds of companies she's worked for are able to control the process, we'll just end up with a giant funnel for directing taxpayer dollars to those companies. Remember the Medicare drug benefit fiasco?
March 2, 2009 12:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Remember the Medicare drug benefit fiasco?"
Again, come on. This comment only makes sense if you assume that Obama is politically indistinguishable from George W. Bush.
While my thirst for Obama Koolaid has been slackened considerably by many of his appointments and actions to date, I don't see any support for your contention that he will implement policies designed primarily to beneift large multinational corporations under the guise of providing benefits to working and middle class Americans.
March 2, 2009 12:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
What? On health care, that's pretty much what he has promised to do (though obviously he doesn't think of it that way). He's made it clear the insurance companies will very much be dealt in- which means, forget about creating a system that really can provide quality universal care for a reasonable cost. And it's not just Obama- very few in the Democratic Party are ready to face up to the sweeping changes that would be needed for effective> health care reform (I didn't buy what ANY of the Democratic presidential contenders were selling on this issue.)
While I still wouldn't be optimistic, I'd feel at least a little better if the White House point person were someone who might challenge some of Obama's thinking in this area(and note that I do give Obama the credit of believing he would listen), rather than someone who's already been completely captured by the industry.
March 2, 2009 1:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Although I'm loathe to quote him in support of my argument, here is Charles Krauthammer from yesterday:
"Obama wants to be to universal health care what Lyndon Johnson was to Medicare. Obama has publicly abandoned his once-stated preference for a single-payer system as in Canada and Britain. But that is for practical reasons. In America, you can't get there from here directly.
Instead, Obama will create the middle step that will lead ultimately and inevitably to single-payer. The way to do it is to establish a reformed system that retains a private health-insurance sector but offers a new government-run plan (based on benefits open to members of Congress) so relatively attractive that people voluntarily move out of the private sector, thereby starving it. The ultimate result is a system of fully socialized medicine. This will probably not happen until long after Obama leaves office. But he will be rightly recognized as its father."
This phenomenon (causing citizens to eventually opt-out of traditional health insurance plans in favor of the goverment-run plan) is exactly what caused Paul Krugman to praise John Edwards' plan in the primary. And Edwards was generally considered the best on health care among progressives.
So, I think your characterization is somewhat unfair.
March 3, 2009 12:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
I agree with Steve LaBonne. Brewmn's is one of the most cynical comments I've read recently. Obama has been all about raising this low standard; I hope he does so in this appointment.
March 2, 2009 12:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Indeed!
March 2, 2009 11:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
"efforts to forge bipartisan consensus have rarely succeeded..."
Matt,is this what you mean by a "mixed record"?
There's one clear fact in those records; Sebelius protects the everyday citizen before she concedes anything to the arrogant Republican bullies who run Kansas' state legislature with a hog-lot-friendly hand.
Have to say, I'm disappointed you did not dig just a little deeper into Sebelius' actual record as our insurance commissioner. Check it out, you may be surprised at how sophisticated she really is.
Take some time to delve into it a bit, and you will see that Kathleen Sebelius has managed to CREATE consensus IN SPITE of EXTREME partisan resistance. If your only gauge of consensus is how many intractable R's she managed to convert, she is quite qualified even in that realm.
Those are the simple facts. Sebelius may look like a sweetheart, which I would assume her friends and fans all consider her to be, but when she knows she is protecting the public, she can wheel and deal with the best of them.
She's no lightweight, and the thought that, after all she's accomplished while being saddled with one of the most bought-and-sold bunch of statehouse Republicans in the country, she would be minimized as if she's done little or nothing, it just makes me want to jump to her defense.
She's proven herself in many ways, at least to those who know her. And if you think dealing with DC Republicans is going to be so much rougher than dealing with Kansas' redleg republican legislature, you need to get outside the beltway more often.
Seriously, Matt, your Washington insider needs a road-trip.
I would have liked to see Dean in there, too, but the personal issues run so deep between Howard and the likes of Rahm Emanuel, none of us should have gotten our hopes up that there would be aplace for our first favorite, in the first place.
March 2, 2009 2:57 PM | Reply | Permalink