Daschle wins backing at Senate committee hearing
Reporting from Washington — Former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, tapped by President-elect Barack Obama to lead his healthcare reform initiative, faced few challenges on Capitol Hill at a confirmation hearing before a key Senate committee Tuesday.
The popular former lawmaker, nominated to be Health and Human Services secretary, reiterated the importance that the new administration will place on reshaping the nation's healthcare system to control skyrocketing costs and to extend coverage to about 47 million people without insurance.
"The flaws in our system are pervasive and corrosive," Daschle told members of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. "They threaten our health and economic security."
Daschle is the first of Obama's nominees to take questions from a congressional panel.
Daschle called healthcare reform "one of the greatest challenges of our time," in words echoed by Democrats and Republicans on the committee, including Chairman Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) who presided over the hearing after returning from treatment for a malignant brain tumor.
Few lawmakers appeared eager to jump into what are expected to become contentious debates about how millions more people will get coverage and who will pay for it.
"It's going to be a tough job, but you can do it well," Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) told Daschle. "And I intend to support you."
Obama has asked Daschle to be both a Cabinet secretary and the head of a special White House healthcare reform office, which many lawmakers and interest groups hope will help accomplish the kind of systemic change that has eluded administrations for nearly a century.
Daschle played a central role in the unsuccessful effort by the Clinton administration to pass healthcare reform in the early 1990s.
After leaving Congress in 2004, he wrote a book analyzing that failure, which many attribute to a lack of cooperation with Congress.
Since joining the Obama team last year, Daschle has been meeting with lawmakers on Capitol Hill and key interest groups in an effort to build consensus for a major healthcare reform push this year.
He also organized a series of town hall meetings in December to bolster grass-roots support for the most ambitious domestic policy initiatives Washington has tackled in more than a decade.
