In case this is your first go round with the confirmation process, it is summarized here.
First up is Tom Daschle. His hearing today is with the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labour and Pensions. It appears to be open to the public, and if you’re in DC, it is slated to start at 10 a.m. in room SD-430. I’m assuming that it will be on C-Span, if not other channels.
Mr. Daschle is incredibly accomplished. You can view a capsule bio, and a list of his writings here. In his position as Secretary of Health and Human Services, he will be in charge of the Administration side of health care reform, in addition to the other required duties of the position. Not to mention that West Wing office, director of the Office of Health Reform.
And health care reform is critical to the United States. I’ve posted on the topic before. The Philadelphia Jewish Voice asked permission to publish the information, and the integrated article can be viewed here.
Remember that while Congress enacts legislation, it is up to “the government” to actually implement the programs. That means award the contracts, cut the checks, manage the programs, and all the other nuts and bolts that go into taking legislation from poetry to prose to action. (That’s why I chose a Rube Goldberg graphic for this post.)
For example, there is this from Playbook:
The $775 billion economic stimulus plan ... could pump more than $100 billion into the health care sector, modernizing its delivery system and providing care to those who lost their health insurance along with their jobs, according to sources close to the planning. The bulk of the money, about $80 billion, would go to state Medicaid programs that are expected to grow with rising unemployment. Officials worry that without a cash infusion, state lawmakers facing already strained budgets would be forced to cut the safety-net health care program just as the need swells. Roughly another $20 billion would be used as a down payment on Obama's $50 billion campaign promise to update the nation's antiquated health care delivery system. The streamlining effort is aimed at improving quality and saving money and could include digitizing patients' medical records and pushing doctors to use e-prescribing.
It would be Daschle’s department that would get the money to the Medicaid programs, and develop the framework of the improved delivery program. We need Mr. Daschle because of his understanding of the system as it exists, and his inverted triangle view of the changes necessary.
A closed door-meeting of the Senate Finance Committee on Thursday will be an early test of President-elect Barack Obama's economic plan, with Chairman Max Baucus hoping to use the executive session to judge support for the tax cuts and major health provisions at the heart of the $775 billion package. Better than half the total cost of the Obama package falls within the Finance Committee's jurisdiction, affecting tax cuts, Medicaid financing and a new proposal providing a 65 percent subsidy to help unemployed workers try to hold on to health insurance coverage for their families. 'My goal is to get this passed in a bipartisan way,' the Montana Democrat told Politico after giving notice of the meeting Tuesday morning. 'I want to move to markup soon, and this is where I can get a sense and feel of what to present in markup, what the threshold is.' In a separate interview, Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley, the ranking Republican on the panel, said Baucus will be helped by the estimated $300 billion in tax cuts in Obama's plan and perception among a solid bloc of Republicans that 'some sort of a stimulus package has to be passed.' But the level of new spending, much of it targeted to states, is meeting Republican resistance, Grassley said, and will be a 'hard swallow.'
Mr. Daschle will also face a grilling at the hands of the Finance Committee, and the Playbook paragraph is an indication of why. Mr. Daschle is uniquely situated to be able to bring the marriage of his health sector knowledge with his experience as Senate Majority Leader.
If you’ve ever met Mr. Daschle, you know he exudes a certain Zen-like quality. He is incredibly well-grounded, thoughtful, insightful and above all, calm. He is, like incredibly-soon-President Obama, nuanced. He’ll need all that if Sanjay Gupta becomes Surgeon General. As Paul Krugman explains, it’s a problem with knowing the facts. You can see more in this discussion between Michael Moore (who had his facts right) and Dr. Gupta (who originally didn’t). Dr. Gupta is a brilliant neurosurgeon, but there is a question of how his thoughts on public health will dovetail with the challenges facing us as a nation.
So, good luck today, Mr. Daschle.
Please feel free to call you Senators and say “Confirm Mr. Daschle. America needs him. I need him.” List of Senate contact information is here.
In case this is your first go round with the confirmation process, it is summarized 
