From Politico http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0109/18237.html

By Kenneth P. Vogel  1/30/09

Tom Daschle, tapped to be President Obama's health czar, was paid more than $200,000 by the health-care industry in the past two years, according to documents obtained by Politico.

The former Senate majority leader, who gave speeches to firms and groups with a vested-interest in the administration's upcoming health reform, collected the checks as part of a $5 million windfall after he lost reelection to his South Dakota seat.

This weekend, Daschle's nomination to be secretary of Health and Human Services became embroiled in controversy over the last-minute revelation that he had only recently paid long-overdue taxes.

Daschle made nearly $5.3 million in the last two years, records released Friday show, including $220,000 he received for giving speeches, many of them to outfits that stand to gain or lose millions of dollars from the work he would do once confirmed as secretary of Health and Human Services.

Published on Thursday, January 15, 2009 by The Nation

Single-Payer Health Care Would Stimulate Economy

by John Nichols

There is an unhealthy tendency on the part of politicians and journalists to see discussions about economic recovery and health care reform as separate debates.

In fact, one of the most important steps on the road to economic recovery - or, more precisely, toward a new, responsible and sustainable prosperity - involves the fundamental reform this country's broken health care system.

But it must be the right reform: the establishment of a national single-payer style healthcare reform system by expanding the existing Medicare system to cover all Americans. According to a new "Single Payer/Medicare for All: An Economic Stimulus Plan for the Nation" study released today by the National Nurses Organizing Committee/California Nurses Association [1], such a reform would provide a major stimulus for the U.S. economy by creating 2.6 million new jobs and infusing $317 billion in new business and public revenues into the economy. This reform would, according to the study, add $100 billion in wages to the currently sputtering U.S. economy.

Indeed, notes the NNOC/CAN, the number of jobs created by a single-payer system, expanding and upgrading Medicare to cover everyone, parallels almost exactly the total job loss in 2008. "These dramatic new findings document for the first time that a single payer system could not only solve our healthcare crisis, but also substantially contribute to putting America back to work and assisting the economic recovery," says NNOC/CAN c o-president Geri Jenkins, RN.

Specifically, notes Jenkins, expanding Medicare to include the uninsured, and those on Medicaid or employer-sponsored health plans, and expanding coverage for those with limited Medicare, would:

1. Create 2,613,495 million new permanent good-paying jobs (slightly exceeding the number of jobs lost in 2008) -- and jobs that are not easily shipped overseas

2. Boost the economy with $317 billion in increased business and public revenues

3. Add $100 billion in employee compensation

4. Infuse public budgets with $44 billion in new tax revenues

Dr. Quentin Young of Physicians for a National Health Program spoke with Illinois Media Progressives for this week's "Single Payer Minute" to weigh in on HHS Secretary-Designate Tom Daschele's call for house parties on health care reform.

And one of our own PDA members had the honor of introducing Dr. Young to the blogging community...there's more...

Similar to Fannie-Freddie Nationalization/Seizure

Mortgages are important. But nobody ever died from a bad mortgage. The same cannot be said about deficient health care. Only in a nation where the political discourse takes place on such a silly, superficial level could we nationalize one industry without warning before or discussion after, while the very idea of fixing a massive, perennial problem in another industry, using the same technique, is demonized and discarded.

Opening shot... 

Healthcare-Now's Win-Win Campaign Featured on GRITtv with Laura Flanders