Tom Daschle/Health Care Reform In Trouble

UPDATE: Tom Daschle has withdrew his nomination to be HHS Secretary.

The Nation: Don't Morn for Daschle

Now, why doesn't Obama nominate Howard Dean?
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Boy this is getting embarrassing! Another one of Obama's cabinet nominees is in trouble for not paying his taxes. Tom Daschle, Obama's nominee for health secretary, failed to pay $128,000 in taxes for the use of car provided by a private equity firm.

But not paying taxes may be the least of the problems with Daschel. He also earned more than $200,000 from the health care industry in the past two years, and is part of a K-Street Law firm that lobbies for the health care industry! Why would Obama pick someone who is tied to the health/insurance industry to regulate and reform that industry?

Some progressives saw the writing on the wall back when Obama nominated Daschel:
Matt Tabbai: The Whore Factor:
"When Obama picked Tom Daschle to be the HHS Secretary, I nearly shit my pants. In Washington there are whores and there are whores, and then there is Tom Daschle. Tom Daschle would suck off a corpse for a cheeseburger. True, he is probably only the second-biggest whore for the health care industry in American politics — the biggest being doctor/cat-torturer Bill Frist, whose visit to South Dakota on behalf of John Thune in 2004 was one of the factors in ending Daschle's tenure in the Senate.

But in picking Daschle — who as an adviser to the K Street law firm Alston and Bird has spent the last four years burning up the sheets with the nation's fattest insurance and pharmaceutical interests — Obama is essentially announcing that he has no intention of seriously reforming the health care industry. . ."

And Glenn Greenwald adds (The Daschles: Feeding at the Beltway Trough):

"Obama supporters argue that Obama needs someone like Daschle, with credibility within the health care industry, in order to achieve real reform. That's the standard explanation for most of what Obama does (he's only courting the establishment in order to change it), and though highly skeptical, I'm personally willing to withhold judgment until the actual evidence is available regarding what Obama actually does.

But there's no need to withhold judgment on Daschle himself. He embodies everything that is sleazy, sickly, and soul-less about Washington. It's probably impossible for Obama to fill his cabinet with individuals entirely free of Beltway filth -- it's extremely rare to get anywhere near that system without being infected by it -- but Daschle oozes Beltway slime from every pore."

The Obama administration is not getting off to a great start when it comes to "CHANGING" Washington...
(See Laura Flanders, Its Not the Lobbying--It's the Agreeing)

If we want REAL health care reform, and Universal Health Insurance, we are going to have to mobilize from the grassroots and demand it!

Get Active:
Universal Healthcare Action Network
Physicians for a National Health Care Program
Progressive Democrats of America