More Signs the Healthcare-Reform Freight Train Is Gathering Steam

Political momentum for a major overhaul of the dysfunctional $2 trillion U.S. healthcare system isn’t limited to recently released congressional white papers, it turns out. Check out today’s portents that suggest President-elect Barack Obama will make an early and significant push to enact sweeping healthcare reforms:

• Obama’s incoming chief of staff Rahm Emanuel told business leaders Tuesday night that the new administration will “throw long and deep” to push major changes in healthcare, taxes, financial regulation and energy. “When it gets rough out there, a lot of business leaders get out of the car and say, ‘We’re OK with minor [healthcare] reform’,” he said. “I’m challenging you today, we’re going to have to do big, serious things.” (See video of Emanuel’s address.)
• According to the NYT and other sources, Obama will ask former Senate majority leader Tom Daschle to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. More to the point, Obama will also name Daschle his point man on health policy, effectively making him the administration’s healthcare-reform czar. In February, Daschle published the book Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis, which among other things dissected the failure of Bill Clinton’s 1994 reform effort. See also Ezra Klein’s May interview with Daschle (via Political Animal) and Jonathan Cohn’s take on the reported Daschle appointment.
• Sen. Ted Kennedy has asked Hillary Clinton to play a senior role in drafting comprehensive healthcare-reform legislation. Clinton, of course, led the White House working group that produced the failed 1994 reform plan. Kennedy’s plan amounts to a sort of consolation prize for Clinton, who lacks the seniority to actually run any important committees. It may also be rendered moot if, in fact, Clinton accepts Obama’s rumored offer to name her Secretary of State. (Bonus content: This hilarious — and farcical — Fafblog! interview with Hillary Clinton, in which she declares, “No one has more experience failing to fix health care than me.”)