Obama should see Daschle's departure as an opportunity, not a problem, health expert writes

Last week, Tom Daschle's withdrawal of his nomination to be secretary of health and human services, and head President Obama's health-care reform efforts, was bemoaned by rural health advocates who said he understood the health needs of rural areas because of his long tenure as a senator from South Dakota. But a longtime health-care executive with experience in both rural areas and government says Obama should see his biggest stumble so far "as an opportunity, not as a problem."

Robert Slaton, who was Kentucky state health commissioner under Gov. Brereton Jones in the early 1990s, recalls how Jones, like Obama, named one person to oversee both health-care reform and run health and human services programs. "The new secretary/reform coordinator learned very quickly that these were both 24/7 jobs; time and attention focused on one was time and attention not available for the other. As a result, both efforts suffered," Slaton writes. Having one person try to do both at the national level is likely to result in failure."

Daschle was viewed as ideal for making the sort of deals needed to achieve success on such a complex issue as health care, but Slaton says Daschle may have "spent too many years pointing fingers in the health care arena to enable him to be successful at this kind of consensus building." He says the logical starting point for health reform is a plan offered in November by Sen. Max Baucus, D-Montana. "Baucus represents a state that is virtually as rural" as South Dakota, and heads the Senate Finance Committee, Slaton notes. "With Senator Daschle out of the picture for now, we can hope that the President will turn to Senator Baucus for significant input on health-care reform."

Slaton is on the advisory board of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, and his article is posted here, on the Institute Web site.