Daschle as Secretary of HHS

The New York Times reports that Tom Daschle will be Secretary of Health and Human Services under Obama.

My usual reaction, upon reading the words "health and human services," is to panic and wonder what document they'll produce next in order to chip away at women's reproductive rights. My reaction to learning that HHS will be run a white male, who receives very mixed ratings from NARAL Pro-Choice America on support of abortion rights, isn't much better.

This news has just broken and is being obscured by the speculation over Hilary Clinton's potential cabinet post. I'll be interested to see what the repro-rights blogosphere will have to say about Daschle. I sense that this will be a disappointment to people who were hoping to see a staunchly pro-choice figure in the HHS role.

This also means Daschle will be a key figure in reforming (hopefully ...) our useless health care system. I'm unsure of Daschle's record here - more on that later.