By Ben Cohen
So Tom Daschle wants Obama to drop the public insurance part of the health care reform package. Maybe it's because he receives so much money from the private insurance companies.
Wrote Matt Taibbi when Daschle was nominated for Human Health Care Secretary:
When Obama picked Tom Daschle to be the HHS Secretary, I nearly shit my pants. In Washington there are whores and there are whores, and then there is Tom Daschle. Tom Daschle would suck off a corpse for a cheeseburger. True, he is probably only the second-biggest whore for the health care industry in American politics — the biggest being doctor/cat-torturer Bill Frist, whose visit to South Dakota on behalf of John Thune in 2004 was one of the factors in ending Daschle's tenure in the Senate......
Regarding Daschle, remember, we're talking about a guy who not only was a consultant for one of the top health-care law firms in the country, but a board member of the Mayo Clinic (a major recipient of NIH grants) and the husband of one of America's biggest defense lobbyists — wife Linda Hall lobbies for Lockheed-Martin and Boeing. Does anyone really think that this person is going to come up with a health care proposal that in any way cuts into the profits of the major health care companies?
Daschle thankfully resigned his duties when it became apparent he had not paid his taxes, so he doesn't wield too much influence. His opposition to a public plan is a blatant attempt to ensure the continued health care for profit model that has served his career so well rather than guarantee good coverage to all Americans.
