Jon Cohn has a nice backgrounder on Nancy Ann DeParle. The basic takeaway: Everyone in Washington says nice things. DeParle is known to be off-the-charts smart and ferociously competent. Her ties to the device industry worry some. But those are very general descriptors. The reason it's hard to evaluate DeParle is because it's not clear what she -- or the Office of Health Reform -- is meant to be doing. The OHR, remember, was built for Daschle: He wanted space in the West Wing where he could run the policy and politics of the health reform process. But few expect DeParle to assume a similar role. The OMB and the NEC have taken a central role in policy design and it's hard to imagine the Office of Health Reform muscling control of the process away from them. Daschle was a political heavyweight whose particular basket of congressional-liaison qualifications is not reproduced in DeParle. At the announcement, Obama said fairly little about DeParle, and she had much less time to speak than Sebelius. So the unanswered question now is what is the Office of Health Reform meant to be doing? It's hard to evaluate the applicant if you don't know much about the job. Anyway, full transcript of today's press conference is below the fold.
