Word: whiteness
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...More important, DeParle is universally known in health-care-policy circles as one of the brightest minds of her generation. Obama now hopes that she is one of a select group who knows enough to make health reform happen this year. Her position, which is informally called White House health czar, was originally created as an add-on title for former Senate majority leader Tom Daschle, who had to withdraw from consideration for Health and Human Services Secretary because of tax problems. But with Daschle out, the White House decided that it still needed a high-level coordinator...
...operating divisions. Orszag must focus on the entire government budget. The head of the National Economic Council, Larry Summers, who has taken a particular interest in health care, has a portfolio that ranges from bank bailouts to global financial regulation. The other legislative, political and managerial staff at the White House spend their days stretched over dozens of subject areas. In this chaotic situation, DeParle will be charged with never letting health care get off track. (Read "Who Will Push Health-Care Reform in Place of Daschle...
...Under the ethics rules that Obama adopted in January, political appointees cannot "participate in any particular matter involving specific parties that is directly and substantially related to a former employer" for two years. A second White House official said on Monday that this rule would not prevent DeParle from doing her job. "She will recuse herself from what she needs to," the official said. "She does not need a waiver...
...bigger question is how well she will be able to work with lawmakers, who are already well on their way developing plans to extend coverage and reduce health-care costs. But that job, like that of managing the internal White House deliberations, will place DeParle squarely in her comfort zone, not in front of television cameras but in backrooms wrestling with the extraordinarily complex details of remaking a broken health-delivery system. "We're going to get to work," announced Obama as soon as DeParle had finished her brief remarks on Monday. And then the new health czar walked away...
...President Barack Obama prepares to convene a health-care summit at the White House later this week, Administration officials are signaling that he intends to pursue a very different strategy for getting reform passed from the one used by his Democratic predecessor in office. Unlike the failed effort of 1994, when Bill and Hillary Clinton presented Congress with a detailed blueprint for reform - and never saw a bill reach the floor of either the House or Senate - Obama is outlining broad principles, with a bottom line of universal coverage, and leaving it up to lawmakers to fashion a plan...