Los Angeles Times: Tom Daschle has his own health plan

Los Angeles Times: Tom Daschle has his own health plan:

"Daschle is urging a far more aggressive push by those advocating systemic change.

'This means going on the offensive,' he wrote in 'Critical,' his recent book about healthcare, in which he singled out drug makers and insurers as potential obstacles to a successful overhaul.

'We cannot assume that the public recognizes the distortions and fallacies peddled by the reform opponents; we have to educate people on the emptiness of the anti-reform rhetoric,' he said.

Daschle has even suggested using the Senate's rules to prevent opponents from filibustering healthcare legislation, a move that one senior Republican staff member warned would make it 'extremely difficult' to get any GOP support for major reform.

Daschle, who declined to be interviewed, has specific -- and potentially controversial -- ideas about how to reshape the healthcare system.

Among other things, he envisions a new federal agency, which he calls a Federal Health Board, with the authority to set guidelines for what treatments and procedures are most cost-effective.

Daschle argues that the board, which would have authority over federally funded healthcare programs such as Medicare, would insulate medical decisions from political meddling by Congress and could help design a system for achieving universal coverage.

He also has called for a mandate to require all Americans to get health insurance and for the creation of a public insurance program to cover people who don't get private insurance."

Also:

"Taking another page from Daschle's political playbook, the president-elect carefully framed a healthcare overhaul as an economic necessity and a moral imperative.

'Day after day,' he said, 'we witness the disgrace of parents unable to take a sick child to the doctor, seniors unable to afford their medicines, people who wind up in emergency rooms because they have nowhere else to turn.' "

The Federal Health Board sounds NICE. That's a good thing.

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