Complicated by the holdup in what was previously seen as an easy confirmation for former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle for the HHS Sec’y post, it appears as though President Obama may be either taking his own sweet time in attacking waste in healthcare or quietly contemplating other battles in his First 100-Day War. NYT columnist and Nobel Prize winner in economics, Paul Krugman, spells out an early plea for Obama to “do something” about soaring healthcare costs now. 

After the economy slumped at the beginning of this decade, five million people joined the ranks of the uninsured — and that was with the unemployment rate peaking at only 6.3 percent. This time the Obama administration says that even with its stimulus plan, unemployment will reach 8 percent, and that it will stay above 6 percent until 2012. Many independent forecasts are even more pessimistic.

Why, then, aren’t we hearing more about ensuring health care access?

Good question. And it’s another one Obama can contemplate while singing the praises of another apparently flawed cabinet nominee in Tom Daschle. Perhaps if Obama managed to take Krugman’s advice and get serious about healthcare accessibility and affordability now, policy watchers wouldn’t have to report on the expected next batch of stories lamenting the problems some states have throwing away federal matching Medicaid dollars. We all thought that healthcare would be a priority for President Obama by now. To be fair, he’s got another 90 days left on delivering, at least initially, on his mandate for change. | LINK

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