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Obama names Daschle to oversee health reform

(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-12-12 07:44

US President-elect Barack Obama yesterday put a former leader of the Senate in charge of coordinating efforts to overhaul the US health care system.

The appointment of former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle as the health and human services secretary and as chief of a new White House Office of Health Reform was announced yesterday in Chicago.

The United States is one of the few Western countries without universal health care.

Jeanne Lambrew, who helped Daschle write a book about health care reform, will serve as deputy director of the new White House office. She also worked on health policy at the White House during the Clinton administration and currently serves as a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank.

Leaders of health advocacy groups have described Lambrew as one of Daschle's most trusted advisers on health issues. She will oversee planning efforts.

After losing re-election to the Senate in 2004, Daschle, a Democrat from South Dakota, became a public policy adviser and member of the legislative and public policy group at the law and lobbying firm Alston & Bird. He advised clients on issues including health care, financial services and taxes and trade, according to the firm's website.

President-elect Barack Obama's choice of Daschle to head HHS has been known for some time.

Obama's selections on several important environmental positions are also starting to become clearer. Obama intends to round out his environmental and natural resources team with a Nobel Prize-winning physicist and three former Environmental Protection Agency officials from the Clinton administration.

The president-elect also selected Steven Chu for energy secretary, Lisa Jackson for EPA administrator, Carol Browner as his energy "czar" and Nancy Sutley to lead the White House Council on Environmental Quality, Democratic officials with knowledge of the decisions said on Wednesday.

Obama plans to name the four to the posts in the coming weeks, barring unforeseen developments.

Still unclear is whom Obama will tap for interior secretary.

Officials close to the transition said support for John Berry, the director of the National Zoo and a former assistant secretary at the Interior Department, was growing. But these officials also said Arizona House Representative Raul Grijalva and California House Representative Mike Thompson were still in the running.