Is Congress the Problem with Health Care?

By Ezra Klein, The American Prospect
Posted on June 20, 2008, Printed on June 21, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/88374/

The first thing you notice when you sit down with Tom Daschle is that he's got some really funky glasses. Like, surprisingly funky. Fire-engine red with odd edges and varied trim, the sort of eyeglasses you'd see perched on the nose of an art dealer, not a former Senate majority leader.

But despite the incongruent accessorizing, Daschle is a former Senate majority leader, through and through. After losing his South Dakota Senate seat to John Thune in 2004, he halfheartedly attempted to return to private life, joining a law firm and taking some teaching gigs. But soon enough, he was pulled back into public policy by the Center for American Progress, which convinced him to become a senior fellow. Soon after that, he began working with well-regarded health-policy researchers Scott Greenberger and Jeanne Lambrew on a book about the health-care system.