The Wall Street Journal is openly fretting about President-elect Obama’s appointment of a radical leftist as the new domestic policy council czar. “The only troubling personnel note was Melody Barnes as Domestic Policy Council director,” opines the paper of record for the U.S. business establishment.  “Putting a former aide to Ted Kennedy in charge of health policy after tapping universal health care advocate Tom Daschle to be Health and Human Services Secretary sends a clear signal that Mr. Obama didn’t mean it when his campaign ads said he wouldn’t run to the extremes with government run health care.”

But, other observers are noting that the appointment by Obama of so many ex-Clinton administration officials — Clintonistas — is making many wonder who actually won the Democratic Primaries and then the General Election on Nov. 4, former First Hillary Clinton or the the party’s new love, the dauphin of democracy, Barack Hussein Obama.

Writes Kelley Beaucar Vlahos in The American Conservative, in an article entitled, The Clinton Cabinet: The Politics of Change Looks Surprisingly Familiar, “at one point during the campaign, Republicans nearly succeeded in painting a picture of a post-election Washington in which radicals with bright red parachutes would drop onto the National Mall like the Hollywood Soviets in 1984’s Red Dawn.”But, writes Vlahos, so far, the invasion looks more like a sprawling downtown reunion of “spry old war buddies from another time—about eight years ago, in fact. So ascendant are the Clintonistas that it’s hard to believe Hillary lost.”

– by Gene J. Koprowski, Editorial Director, and Nancy Bruening, Executive Editor

Happy Days Are Here Again for Bill and Hill. Obama won, but they’re driving policy and personnel for the aspiring president.

Posted: November 28th, 2008 under News.
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GOP political consulant Christopher Coffey is telling Fox News that Barack Hussein Obama has not even taken the oath of office, and he is “already distancing himself from his campaign promises.”

News reports now claim Obama will focus on providing a huge stimulus package that could cost as much as $700 billion over two years. “There are vague promises of spending cuts to accompany this proposed stimulus. The details of his campaign tax plan are now in flux and earlier promises of a balanced budget seem destined for the back burner,” said Coffey. “In the days leading up to the election, Barack Obama was the candidate who wanted to balance the budget, cut taxes for 95% of working Americans and provide universal health care. He made these promises notwithstanding the financial crisis and subsequent bailout.”

What, exactly, has changed since Election Day?

“We are in the midst of a financial and economic crisis, just as we were in the weeks leading up to the election. The real difference is that now Obama must govern, and his pledges were designed to secure an election, not to secure an economic recovery,” Coffey told Fox. “His promises to balance the budget, cut taxes and provide universal health care are as untenable today as they were last month and he has no choice but to reverse course.”

Coffey said that he is “delighted” that Obama is retreating from many of his “impractical” ideas. “Tax hikes, like the ones he supported just a few weeks ago, would devastate the economy. So would the taxes he would need to levy to support his myriad spending proposals while balancing the budget,” said Coffey.

But the president-elect is aiming for “truly staggering levels” of government spending, undoubtedly supported by increased borrowing, raises many questions “that should give us all pause,” said Coffey.

Can the U.S. afford another $700 billion in spending, especially if is it spent over two years? “What effect will this stimulus have on the deficit? Can we continue to saddle American taxpayers with more and more debt without any consequences? Where will the Democrats in Congress and the White House set future taxes? Should we expect some old fashioned taxing and spending to accompany the current round of spending and borrowing? What happens if this $700 billion in spending, like the last plan, fails to stimulate the economy?” said Coffey.

The sooner we know the answers to these questions, the sooner we will know Obama’s “real intentions” and the sooner the economy will regain a sense of certainty. Until then, “change” could very well mean that our new president will change his mind on the issues every few days, Coffey told Fox News.

– by Gene J. Koprowski, Editorial Director, and Nancy Bruening, Executive Editor

Obama to voters: keep the change.

Posted: November 27th, 2008 under News.
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The AARP — a leading special interest group that lobbies for socialized medicine for senior citizens  — is exceptionally enthused about the nomination of career government bureaucrat Peter Orszag to head the White House office of management and budget in the Obama administration.

“President-elect Obama’s selection of Peter Orszag is great news for anyone who cares about fixing our broken health care system,” said the statement, released by spokesman Jim Dau, in Washington, D.C. “While many in Washington focus on the impact of programs like Medicare on our country’s fiscal health, Mr. Orszag understands that the federal budget is actually threatened by skyrocketing health care costs that drive spending throughout the entire system. In other words, he is looking to cure the disease and not just treat the symptoms.”

Dau’s statement added that Orszag’s nomination, along with HHS nominee Tom Daschle and the leadership of long-time champions on Capitol Hill, “gives us (the socialized medicine lobby) great hope that overdue health care reform is on the way for 2009.”

The AARP was formerly known as the American Association of Retired Persons, but changed its name to sound more alluring to aging baby boomers who don’t want to be stigmatized by issues like age and death, experts note.

– by Gene J. Koprowski, Editorial Director, and Nancy Bruening, Executive Editor

More change — more of the same.  Obama picks old director of Congressional Budget Office to head the OMB.

Posted: November 26th, 2008 under News.
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The nation’s biggest pharmaceutical trade association is readying a multimillion-dollar ad campaign to tout the importance of free-market health care and undercut an expected onslaught by the incoming Obama administration for price controls of prescription drugs.

The effort will include a national television commercial scheduled to begin airing next week. This is expected to be the first sortie in what likely will be a huge war over health care reform during the Obama presidency.

Other major businesses are also gearing up for the fight, including insurance companies. But the stakes are especially high for drug developers, which stand to lose as much as $30 billion in revenue if President-elect Barack Obama’s collectivist plan to let the federal government negotiate Medicare drug prices is implemented, according to an independent report.

“There’s no question that next year will be a challenging year,” said Ken Johnson, senior vice president with the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, or PhRMA, which is organizing the ad campaign.

Obama attacked drug companies repeatedly during his presidential election campaign; a lawsuit filed by former presidential candidate Alan Keyes is pending in California, questioning whether Obama meets the constitutional requirements to be president, including being a native born American citizen.

– by Gene J. Koprowski, Editorial Director, and Nancy Bruening, Executive Editor

Controlling drug prices is patriotic, according to Obama.

Posted: November 25th, 2008 under News.
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Barack Obama promised voters that he would slash health care costs if he were president. But an examination of his plan shows that the boy president-elect will have a very difficult time making good on that promise. Obama said that he would cut health care premiums by $2,500. That figure comes from an estimate by Harvard University advisers to Obama’s campaign. The campaign strategists calculated that if the government spent more on information technology (IT) for health care, managed diseases better and cut extraneous paperwork, the U.S. could save about $200 billion a year in health spending — or about $2,500 off the average family’s health insurance bill. Obama’s shadow advisers figure that more IT would save $77 billion, based on a report from the RAND Corp., a think tank.IT saves money in the private sector by improving efficiency. But when the Congressional Budget Office looked at the RAND report, it found serious problems, including that researchers had excluded studies, even those published in peer-reviewed journals, “that failed to produce results” by adding more IT in health care.

Posted: November 25th, 2008 under News.
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Medicaid covered nearly $198 million in costs between 2004 and 2007 for more than 100 unauthorized medications for pain, colds, and other problems, according to media reports.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) says that it is trying to remove unapproved drugs from the market, as a potential health threat.

But certain federal laws allow Medicaid to continue to cover the drugs. Officials in charge of the Medicaid program say they are aware of the issue, but they say congressional help is needed to fix the problem. Both Medicaid and the FDA are under the umbrella of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

– by The Editors

Posted: November 24th, 2008 under News.
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Experts are saying that the selection of former Sen. Tom Daschle as the secretary of health and human services by President-elect Barack Obama suggests that a significant health information technology spending increase is on tap for the incoming administration.

Daschle’s book, Critical: What We Can Do About the Health Care Crisis, published in early 2008, notes that “we are years, if not decades, behind European nations in harnessing health care information technology’s potential.” The book calls for removing much health care policy-making from the political arena but states that at the same time the executive branch of the federal government should promote creation of an IT infrastructure for health information.

Obama and Daschle are on record as favoring more health IT spending.

Praise for the appointment came from former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, a Republican and founder of a think tank, the Center for Health Transformation. Gingrich, a passionate advocate of improved health IT, said, “given the current state of health care in America and the opportunity for real progress in Washington next year, President-elect Obama has chosen a proven leader. Senator Daschle has long been committed to reforming health care so that all Americans can get quality, effective care.”

Though not considered a health care innovator during his 26 years in Congress, Daschle served on the Senate Finance Committee, which oversees Medicare and Medicaid. He also was an adviser to first lady Hillary Clinton’s failed health care reform effort in the Clinton administration.

The Healthcare Information Management Systems Society was among those applauding the news of his pending nomination to the HHS post. “HIMSS believes Sen. Daschle understands the critical health care issues and how IT can be leveraged to improve the quality, safety and efficiency of care,” the society said in a statement.

– by Gene J. Koprowski, Editorial Director and Nancy Bruening, Executive Editor

Former Speaker Gingrich sees a major increase in health IT spending coming.

Posted: November 24th, 2008 under News.
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Concerns are growing about possible conflicts of interest of former Senator Tom Daschle, Barack Obama’s nominee, for secretary of health and human services, according to media reports.

At issue is Mr. Daschle’s work since leaving the Senate four years ago as a board member of the Mayo Clinic, and a highly paid adviser to health care clients at the law and lobbying firm Alston & Bird, which represents major pharmaceutical companies and medical device developers.

In a detailed list of campaign promises, Mr. Obama pledged that “no political appointees in his administration would be permitted to work on regulations or contracts directly and substantially related to their prior employer for two years.”

Though Daschle’s work might not ruin his chances of appointment, it could raise the possibility that the administration could require him to recuse himself from any matter related to either the Mayo Clinic or some of the clients he advised at Alston & Bird. “That’s a potentially broad swath of the health secretary’s portfolio,” The New York Times reports.

Daschle’s selection reflects a problem, widely forecast by Washington lawyers and lobbyists, between Obama’s pretentious ethics rules and his desire to recruit experienced policy players.

“Where is the change?” radio talk show host, Rush Limbaugh, said on the air today, of the Obama appointees. “Promises were made, Obama. The acceptance speech on the election night was creepy — ‘Yes we can! Yes we can! Now it is no we can’t.”

It is considered a standard practice in Washington for experienced officials like Daschle to spend their time out of power making money for private influence-seekers, returning to office with a complicated set of loyalties. But eliminating anyone who has done that could decimate the pool of potential appointees. For example, Vice President, Dick Cheney, served as CEO of Halliburton, in the years after he left government as Secretary of Defense. But, his selection as running mate by President Bush in 2000, earned nothing but outrage from liberal critics on MoveOn.org, who savagely attacked Cheney, saying that he wanted to Iraq war to bolster oil interests.

“If you are not on the inside, you are on the outside trying to influence what you used to do on the inside,” said Peter Metzger, vice chairman of the executive search firm CT Partners in Washington. “That is the game — you are doing it one way or the other.”

– by Gene J. Koprowski, Editorial Director, and Nancy Bruening, Executive Editor

What, me worry? Obama now plays down expectations on ethics, economic recovery, other campaign promises.

Posted: November 21st, 2008 under News.
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A scholar at the Heritage Foundation, Dr. Stuart M. Butler, said the makings of a health reform plan that may be proposed during the Obama administration have been put forth by Democratic Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus of Montana.

Sen. Baucus last week released the draft plan which “he sees as framing the upcoming debate on health care reform,” according to Butler.

The coming debate over health care reform is likely to be a “more open conversation than occurred during the last major effort at reform, which was characterized by the secretive health task force of the Clinton administration,” said Butler.

Butler said that one of the key ideas in the proposal is the idea of a “health exchange,” somewhat similar to Medicare, which would compete with private insurance plans. However, the proposal is “fraught with difficulty and danger, because the federal government would then own a plan in the competition, while also setting the rules for that competition,” said Butler. “Who can doubt that the rules would be rigged in favor of a Medicare-style plan?”

– by Gene J. Koprowski, Editorial Director, and Nancy Bruening, Executive Editor

Montana Senator Baucus is leading the health care battle for the Obamunists.

Posted: November 21st, 2008 under News.
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A number of liberal activists who were aides to President Bill Clinton during his tumultuous two terms of President of the U.S. — and lobbyists who worked for health reform causes — are handling the health care policy transition for the Obama administration, poised to take office in just over two months.

According to media reports, William Corr, one of two leaders on President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team for the Health and Human Services Department, was a top aide to former Sen. Tom Daschle, Mr. Obama’s choice to run the sprawling agency.

Corr, now the executive director of the anti-smoking group Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, was chief counsel and policy director from 1998 to 2000 for then-Senate Minority Leader Daschle. He joined the anti-tobacco lobby, an extension, in essence, of the Clinton administration, in 2000, and has lobbied Congress to give the Food and Drug Administration, an HHS agency, the authority to regulate tobacco. An Obama transition official said Corr, a registered lobbyist until September, is recused from working on tobacco issues. During the campaign, the mysterious Obama had promised that no lobbyists would serve in his administration which was going to bring unspecified “change” to America.

Corr has a long resume working for Democrats on health matters. He was HHS Secretary Donna Shalala’s chief of staff during the Clinton administration, and was counsel to the House Energy and Commerce health subcommittee for 12 years, working on health-care access and food and drug issues, such as the orphan drug legislation.

According to Michael Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, where Mr. Corr is a board member, “Bill is a strong pragmatic health advocate who I’m confident will be figuring out in the coming weeks what HHS should be doing to promote public health.”

Another adviser leading the HHS transition team is Nicole Lurie, a researcher at the think tank Rand Corp. Dr. Lurie, an internist, was principal deputy assistant secretary for health at HHS during the last three years of the Clinton administration.

– by Gene J. Koprowski, Editorial Director, and Nancy Bruening, Executive Editor

Posted: November 20th, 2008 under News.
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