Health Care Heavyweights

By appointing Tom Daschle and Jeanne Lambrew, Obama isn't just signaling that he is serious about health care, he's putting it in the hands of people who will get it done.

Ezra Klein | December 12, 2008 | web only
American Prospect

There's an old saying in Washington: "Personnel is destiny."

In 1993, President Bill Clinton sealed the destiny of his health-reform plan when he chose his wife, Hillary Clinton, to head the effort, and his old friend, management consultant Ira Magaziner, to serve as her deputy. Neither of the two had lived long in Washington nor had either worked in Congress. Neither possessed standing relationships with powerful legislators or a deep understanding of the federal bureaucracy. But they had something else: undeniable brilliance. Tremendous analytical horsepower. They would -- President Clinton thought -- approach the policy problem with an outsider's perspective and synthesize dazzling new ideas and tested old concepts.

They did, but unmitigated disaster resulted. Clinton and Magaziner built a policy of exquisite delicacy and undeniable innovation, pairing managed care with managed competition to construct an elegant hybrid structure where the public sector and the private sector would toil in productive cooperation. The legislation stretched past 1,000 pages, was nearly impossible to explain, and lacked the support of either the relevant legislators or the American public.

(More here.)