Today, Barack Obama announced that Tom Daschle would be leading his efforts to reform health-care. Last May, Ezra Klein reviewed Daschle's book on the subject and interviewed the former Senate leader:
EK: But when you have a history, like you did in 1993, when people had bumper stickers saying, "If you like the DMV, you'll love government health-care," how do you sell both the politicians and the public on the idea that what we're going to do is turn health-care decisions over to a government-appointed, semi-accountable, vaguely shadowy institution? How do you make them comfortable with that?
TD: Well, first of all, that's not what we're doing. And so if we've not gotten our message better out, we will have failed. I don't think we have a government-run banking system. Most people believe we have a private banking system. But somebody -- the Federal Reserve -- is there to help set the guidelines within which this private banking system functions. Banks are free to do almost anything on banking practices if they want, just as long as it fits within those guidelines. And so it would be with the Federal Health Board. We would try to streamline the tremendous bureaucracy that exists today in our federal government when it comes to health-care. So this would really mean far less bureaucracy, not more. And I would simply ask the question, if you think our banking system today is reasonably regulated, why not try the same type of model for our health-care system?
--The Editors
