You think I'm kidding, don't you? From The Wall Street Journal:Health-care advocates are actively campaigning to persuade Barack Obama to cross a leading candidate off his short-list for secretary of Health and Human Services: Tennessee Democratic Gov. Phil Bredesen. And, in an unusual move for an official under consideration, the governor is fighting back publicly."Anybody who's got some real scars and experience is going to have their detractors," the governor said Monday in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. "People at the White House are smart enough to be able to assess that." And he took a swipe at his opponents, saying that "advocacy groups don't matter nearly as much as the pharmaceutical groups, the hospitals, the doctors' groups. There's a lot of very powerful interest groups that will play in this thing."
To be fair, no advocacy group that I've encountered has suggested that the pharmaceutical, hospital, and medical lobbies aren't powerful, nor that they wouldn't enthusiastically support Phil Bredesen's nomination. Advocate opposition aside, Bredesen's chosen defense ofers useful insight into his approach to health care issues. Later in the article, we learn that as a further hedge against criticism, Bredesen's staff gave Rahm Emanuel "letters of support...from the president of the Tennessee Hospital Association and from a half dozen pediatricians in the state." This belief that industry support is the highest form of flattery isn't surprising. Bredesen himself comes from a health industry background. And, arguably, that gives him unique insight into their incentives and vulnerabilities. But he's presenting himself as the candidate of the health care industry rather than the candidate of those who think they need a secretary with the credibility to stand against the health care industry.
