Aides to Bredesen Say White House Is Considering Governor

[BlueJessamine]

Source: Nashville Scene

It's an exaggeration to say the White House and Gov. Phil Bredesen are in serious discussions, as the Atlantic is reporting. But aides to Bredesen acknowledge there is some level of talk with the White House over the possibility that the governor might replace Tom Daschle as President Obama's health and human services secretary. "There have been indirect feelers both ways," one Bredesen administration source tells Pith.

Sources say the White House is examining the public record for Bredesen's views on health care reform, but has not yet asked the governor to submit any information. Aides insist Bredesen was truthful with reporters yesterday when he claimed he'd had no contact, even with Obama intermediaries, over the HHS job. The governor apparently hasn't talked with anyone. His staff is doing all the talking so far.

They say Bredesen is indicating he'd take the job as long as he would lead Obama's ambitious health-care agenda like Daschle was supposed to do. That's what the governor told reporters last night at the Tennessee Press Association meeting.

"If it were a case of really being able to help in some fundamental way, something I really believe in which is to create universal health care, I certainly would think about it and talk about it. If it's a matter of administering a big, huge bureaucracy, I've already got that job."


Read more: http://blogs.nashvillescene.com/pitw/2009/02/aides_to_bredesen_say_white_ho.php

---

The Atlantic

Ambinder: Bredesen is being vetted for the job of HHS

The White House and Gov. Phil Bredesen of Tennessee are in serious discussions about the Health and Human Services Secretary position; Bredesen is being vetted for the job . Some activists and health care experts are very anxious because they know that Bredesen, in the lingo of the field, is a cost-cutter, rather than an all-access guy. But his courting by the White House might not be as surprising as it first seems: Obama's health care plan was always predicated on cost control and a little less than universal. And Bredesen is, above all else, a start-up guy with an enterpreneur's enthusiasm--and waning focus.


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x423023

[BR_Parkway]

1. Are there no people outside government who would be right for these

jobs?

All these Senators, Governors and such nominated.

[DFW]

2. It makes one wonder--was Howard Dean asked, and said, "to hell with you," or....

Was Howard Dean never asked, and is it the whole country is who is being told, "to hell with you?"

[wysimdnwyg]

3. I'm not the biggest Bredesen fan, but...

While I might prefer a less buisiness-oriented Gov., Bredesen has been good for the state. And as one of the few states tilting further in the red direction, I would really hate to lose him right now.

Mr. President,
While you may not select my first choice for this (Gov. Howard Dean), I implore you to pick someone other than Gov. Bredesen. We can't afford to lose him here in Tennessee.

[NashVegas]

5. We're Going To Lose Him Anyway

To term limits. But geez.

[NashVegas]

4. Even Now, When TennCare Is Wiping 10s of Thousands Off the Rolls?

And, our Lieutenant Governor is a Republican.

[No Elephants]

12. Who, as an incumbent, may well get elected in 2010. Obama needs to stop

mining Governor's offices.

[BlueJessamine]

6. Obama Must Not Appoint Phil Bredesen as Daschle's Replacement

As governor of Tennessee, Bredesen is famous -- or infamous -- for gutting TennCare, the state's low income health care provider. To be sure, this was not entirely Bredesen's fault. Poor finances combined with a truculent legislature did not leave him a vast range of options. But there were many in his state who felt he didn't come near to exhausting the possible alternatives and, in any case, the fact remains that under Bredesen, more than 320,000 of Tennessee's needy were thrown off the health care rolls. (Among the most heartbreaking portions of Jon Cohn's excellent book Sick is his chapter following one of the affected families.) It's not exactly a record of success, and it's one that's left Tennessee's liberals -- and health care advocates more generally -- profoundly skeptical of Bredesen.


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

[No Elephants]

7. More

http://www.xanga.com/nickdupree/298010906/item/

Tuesday, July 05, 2005
323,000

The documentary about how a Governor executing the largest health care cuts in American history will leave 323,000 to fend for themselves


This chilling 29 minute documentary, "323,000," is about the 323,000 who are now losing their health care under TennCare, Tennessee's Medicaid program. The film is the culmination of a 6 month investigation into the largest health care cuts in the history of America. In the course of the investigation and filming, documents were discovered that prove that the drastic nature of the cuts now are unneccesary, and part of a bigger political strategy.

To understand the REAL issues with TennCare, the motives behind the cuts, the advocacy happening now, the people who will die from losing heart, anti-transplant rejection and other medications and those on respirators losing all their in-home care that keeps them alive, you MUST watch "323,000."

Click to watch
http://www.tenncare.org/323000.wmv

My commentary on the documentary:

I think the key strategy in order to beat back these kinds of cuts, given the current political climate, is to make the largely "pro-life" citizenry as uncomfortable as possible with their current policy choices. Show the human face as much as possible. One of the 323,000 people about to be cut emailed me months ago and he is in a wheelchair from MD and a great songwriter whose stuff has been published. I helped him all I could. These people live in their own homes, with family, spouses or friends, lead lives in the community, some with jobs or school careers, and in a nursing home - their only option once in-home care ends - they're ripped away from any chance of becoming self-supporting.

This documentary makes Fahrenheit 9/11 look like a Carebears episode. It's not as gory, but more directly evil. Thousands will die, way more than in Iraq, and no one in the media really cares.

Governor Breseden's eugenics plans were tied up in lawsuits from those silly people who don't want to die, but those people lost, and cuts are beginning. He actually said it is their own fault to not work at a place that provides health insurance.

On camera in this documentary he admits he is killing people and says he doesn't blame them... wtf?

They uncover documents proving it's all a political game...he wants to cut deep and hard now, and next year when it's re-election time, add more services to show how generous and effective his management has been. And this is the Democrat.

I'm still amazed at how evil people can be. This is life and death, but unfortunately this is not getting 0.001% of the attention Shiavo did because of the politics involved. I'm doubting this post will even garner the response my Shiavo posts did. The blogosphere is barely mentioning it, even the leftists aren't carrying it as the disabled people's sit-in in the Governor's office nears its third week. The protestors are often being denied food and water.

Why no uproar? Is it that having tax dollars attached to it makes keeping these people alive less appealing? Basically yes.

And it makes me physically ill.

Man's inhumanity to man......
Oh wait, are people with severe disabilities considered part of mankind?

Routinely killing people who have severe disabilities because they cost too much is not "a culture of life," and it is reprehensible.

Please spread this message and help me get some of the prime bloggers to get activism going. The media is key. We cannot tolerate eugenics in our country.

http://www.xanga.com/nickdupree/298010906/item/

[quidam56]

8. Health care in Tennessee is pretty screwed up..

Bredesen is a bad choice, I know what he deems, defends and supports as acceptable standards of health care. http://www.wisecountyissues.com In East Tennessee, Profit Care comes before Patient Care.

[pjt7]

9. Tennesse is

fairly unhealthy, compared to the rest of the Nation.

Is this guy a MD. What's his qualification's besides a D politican?

[BlueJessamine]

10. Bredesen: Former HMO entrepreneur.

wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Bredesen

In 1961, Bredesen entered Harvard College, where he concentrated in physics and lived in Quincy House. He received his A.B. degree in 1967.<1>

Bredesen married Susan Cleaves in 1968, but they divorced in 1974 and had no children. In 1974, Bredesen married Andrea Conte in Wheatley, Oxfordshire, England, and the two have one son, Ben. In 1975, the family moved to Nashville, Tennessee. There Bredesen founded HealthAmerica Corp., a healthcare management company that eventually grew to more than 6,000 employees and was publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange. He sold his controlling interest in HealthAmerica in 1986, and because of the wealth he earned from his work with the company, he does not accept his gubernatorial salary.

He is the 48th Governor of Tennessee, having served since 2003. He previously served as the fourth mayor of the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County from 1991 to 1999.

As governor Bredesen took control of TennCare and made cuts like it was a business - he seems to only care about the bottom line.


Knows health care, but is mistrusted by the left and health care advocates. Has potentially troublesome ties to industry (BlueCross BlueShield paid $150,000 to renovate the governor's mansion).

[guruoo]

11. Update: Bredsen for 'government underwritten', not 'government operated' healthcare

Bredesen willing to talk health
He says he would 'love' to chat about nation's care system

By Josh Flory (Contact), Tom Humphrey (Contact)
Saturday, February 7, 2009

"I'm a believer in some form of national or universal health care," he said, "not operated by the government but underwritten by the government. We don't do a good job of running things compared to private industry, but we do a good job with things like Social Security, being able to move money around."

Bredesen said that any new plan shouldn't be "the sort of super-comprehensive system where anything you want, no matter what, no matter when, is free."

...

Tony Garr, executive director of the Tennessee Health Care Campaign, has taken the talk seriously enough to launch an effort to have health care activists contact President Obama's staff and voice opposition to a Bredesen appointment.

In an e-mail to activists, Garr cited Bredesen's history of cutting TennCare rolls as governor and said elevating him to the top overseer of health care in the nation would be "horrible for this country."

http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2009/feb/07/bredesen-willing-to-talk-health/

[No Elephants]

13. K & R