The Obama campaign is adding more former Clinton people to its staff, and the latest hire is Neera Tanden, the Clinton campaign's former policy director, who'll be running domestic policy for Obama. One of Tanden's more notable roles in the Clinton campaign was helping to develop her health care proposal. Between this and Obama health advisor Kavita Patel's hints today, noted by Ezra, that Obama may reconsider his opposition to an individual mandate, it seems that the Obama camp may be reformulating its health care plan to move it closer to Clinton's. This is pretty savvy; it became clear over the course of the primary that opponents of individual mandates are generally less invested in the issue than proponents, many of whom backed Clinton or Edwards primarily because of this issue. The hire may also indicate, ironically, a repudiation of Bill Clinton's approach to health care reform in 1994. His cardinal sin, in the eyes of Obama and many other Democrats, was a lack of openness with Congress and the public in the formulation of his plan. By hinting at a willingness to amend his own plan, both with Patel's comments and with the Tanden hire, Obama is challenging this approach, and indicating that his priority is getting a plan, rather than his plan, passed.
--Dylan Matthews
