All Entries Tagged With: "HHS"
Plan B Doesn’t Look So Bad
It became clear in the days after Sen. Tom Daschle’s tumbling fall from grace as HHS nominee that there was no Plan B to quickly fall behind him. It took almost a month of (hopefully) careful vetting to put forth Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius as HHS Secretary, or fully half of the healthcare leadership role that President Obama had intended for Daschle. The other half–essentially as White House healthcare reform doctor–will be filled by Nancy-Ann Deparle, former HCFA Administrator, and who was commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Human Services at about the same age that most young professionals are still looking for entry-level jobs.
HHS Nominee Kathleen Sebelius
The two could make a capable pair. Sebelius is widely credited as being able to manage nicely as a Kansas Democrat in a mostly Republican state, even though the Washington Post points out in an analysis that she was able to gain only modest healthcare victories. DeParle has the right intellectual curriculum vitae, as well as the policy shaping experience, to provide a powerful push. There are some advantages, I beleive, in splitting the two roles, allowing Sebelius to manage the unwieldy HHS bureaucracy and allow DeParle to be the White House healthcare hammer. There may be some overlap, even a smidgen of dynamic tension, but that may not be such a bad thing.
The next big event will be the healthcare summit later this week, which has a guest list that promises to be comprehensive but has yet to be made public. The new President is investing an almost unprecedented amount of political capital on the outcome of his healthcare push, and given the knives that have already started to come out against his budget plan, the debate should be spicy.
The President also announced today that $155 million of the Recovery Act will go to “supporting 126 new health centers across the country, providing care to 750,000 Americans and creating 5,000 jobs.” For a breakdown on funds and projected jobs by state, click here.