I'm going to write a very quick post defending Phil Bredesen. First let me I say that Phil Bredesen is my choice for Secretary of Health.
Now as for his cuts on TennCare, you cannot blame him. His statements were:
"The sad reality is that we can’t afford TennCare in its current form," Bredesen said. "It pains me to set this process in motion, but I won’t let TennCare bankrupt our state. This is the option of last resort."
At the time the budget situation was getting vire dire and untenable and a large scale tax increase was simply not politically viable. And, to be honest, part of the problem was not enough Federal SCHIP Funds. But, under his measures he did not cut the coverage on children. Bredesen was right in not letting one program bankrupt and take over a states budget. It was just painful fiscal responsibility- in order to maintain his increases in education and crime spending and keep the monstrous behemoth that TennCare was becoming, he had to make the painful cuts. To be honest, TennCare was one of the largest and most far reaching State Health Insurance Programs in the Country. In other states where I have lived, Arkansas and Louisiana, the state programs only covers you until you are 18, and primarily uses Federal SCHIP funds.
I support the move because Bredesen is a very intelligent candidate with enormous experience in the issue as both Governor and the founder and runner of HealthAmericaCorps. People need to remember that even if he is heading the Department Obama will still be calling the shots and in the end he will working towards Obama's agenda. It does help to have insiders when undertaking reform. Not only does it allow you to see the issue from the other side of the table and better neogoiate- something that was repeatedly the major problem of Bush's administration - but you also have to understand how the system works and why it works that why in order to be able to change it.
Besides this Bredesen would be a very non-political move- widely popular, and there would be little or no opposition to him in the media or the Senate, except for maybe DeMint and Vitter, and maybe not even DeMint.
Bredesen would be the perfect choice, politically popular and just what Obama needs. Few would able to masterfully neogiate and put together a plan as well as Bredesen. He brings everybody to the table which is what we need for true reform. Just because he made cuts to TennCare to manage the budget doesn't mean he is anti-reform and would try to buck Obama's agenda. Quite the opposite, I think that Bredesen is the best possible choice for the job.
It also adresses the problem of the complete lack of southerners in Obama's cabinet, except for Ron Kirk at the minor position of Trade Secretary, and none if you consider Texas as more southwestern than Southern. Of course for the past two decades they have probably been used to being overrepresented with two consecutive southern Presidents, but giving Tennessee a Cabinet position would be a way to gain political favor with them.
P.S. Please Vote in the Poll. I use it as a counter to know how many people have a read a particular post, just out of curiosity to know how much impact I'm having.
Update: I'll add what Johnathan Cole, author of Sick and an advocate of Health Care Reform- who still opposes Bredesen's nomination- had to say about him:
A lot of what Bredesen proposed to do—such as reducing fraud by providers and recipients, and improving the use of information technology—made sense...
To be clear--and to give Bredesen his due--the budget situation really was getting dire. Tennessee is a conservative state in which raising taxes, in order to finance the program at proper levels, was probably not politically possible.