I’m personally encouraged that Tom Daschle will be the next Secretary of HHS. He had his first of several town hall meetings to help Mr. Obama listen to the American people on how we should reform the system, not IF we should. He’s getting some crazy advice from folks almost as clueless as the Detroit auto industry trifecta. But, I would trust Daschle to filter out the best of the messages from the kooky ones. His book reveals two things he will strongly urge the President and Congress to implement:

• A public private expert National Health Care Reserve Board, similar to the Federal Reserve for banking, to help the nation make the tough decisions that will be necessary to create a viable and true system that reflects a public/private partnership -- public commitments, funding assistance, and fair and enlightened policies, and competing private insurance and delivery system implementers. Congress needs such a body to de-politicize better policy decisions and use of resources.
• A new national Institute for Comparative Effectiveness. We need that as well.
  

Both of these central ideas are worth our serious consideration in my view at least.

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