Capitol Hill
08 January 2009
Former U.S. Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, President-elect Barack Obama's nominee to be Secretary of Health and Human Services, said if confirmed by the Senate he will work to make health care more affordable for more Americans. Health care reform is a top domestic priority for the incoming Obama administration.
Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Chairman Edward Kennedy (L), Tom Daschle (C), and Sen. Christopher Dodd (R) on Capitol Hill, 08 Jan 2009 |
"The fact that health care premiums have doubled in the last eight years leave some families to make the awful choice between health insurance and rent or heat and food," he said.
Daschle - who is expected to be easily confirmed by the Senate - is author of the book, "Critical: What We Can Do About the Health Care Crisis.
Daschle said the health care crisis is affecting U.S. economic competitiveness - noting, for example, that the U.S. automaker General Motors spends more on health care than it does on steel.
"We have serious cost problems now. But every expert says, if we fail to address the issue of cost, that the situation will double just in the next 10 years alone," he said.
"I want to reinstate a science-driven environment. I want to take ideology, politics, as much as humanly possible, out of the process and leave the scientists to do their job," said Daschle.
Chairing the committee was Senator Ted Kennedy, his first hearing since undergoing brain cancer surgery last year.
"Tom Daschle understands the urgency and the challenge of health reform. He knows that Americans feel the heavy weight of rising costs," he said.
Health care has been a key issue for the Massachusetts Democrat throughout his long Senate career.
US Secretary of Labor-designate Hilda Solis , 19 Dec. 2008 |
Next Tuesday, hearings are scheduled for five nominees, including Senator Hillary Clinton to be Mr. Obama's secretary of state.