Obama to Nominate Daschle for Healthcare Post: Report

New York – U.S. President-elect Barack Obama is turning his gaze now to healthcare – one of his most effective banners in the election. Reports say that he is considering member of the Senate Tom Daschle to be nominated for the position of secretary of Health and Human Services.

Today at a news conference said to happen around 12 p.m. is where Obama is anticipated to announce the nomination of Daschle, who is a Democrat from South Dakota. Daschle is expected to lead the extensive re-tooling of the healthcare system in the United States that Obama mentioned often in his campaign. One of the reasons he defeated Republican John McCain was because of this promise to make expansive healthcare available to all persons who need it. Obama is not expected to unleash details to his plan until he actually takes office on January 20th.

“I hope to have the plan enacted by next year, and then it will take several years to implement,” Daschle said last month.

However, there has been a bit of a diversion since Blagojevich, the governor from Obamas home state, has been arrested because of allegations that he intended to sell Obama’s vacant seat in the Senate. Obama has openly called for the resignation of Blagojevich and plans to announce Daschle’s nomination today to begin to move away from the corruption of Illinois. However, this might still be a subject brought up by reporters in the news conference today. Obama has already stated publicly that he had no knowledge of the dealings going on around his vacant seat.

He will also likely be faced with questions regarding how he is going to pay for the $60 billion healthcare effort of reform. Obama has said in the past that he plans to pay by eliminating unpopular tax cuts for wealthy Americans which was imposed under the Bush administration.

There are some doubts across the board over whether Obama will be able to pay for the extensive plan with the economy being is such a dismal state.

Obama has been taking cues from ordinary Americans, featuring a place on his website where people can express what they would like to see change in the healthcare system, which currently leaves around 50 million people out in the cold without insurance.

In the past, Daschle has implied that he would like to have individual states involved in reforming healthcare.

Current reports say that around 50 million Americans have no access to health insurance of any kind, either individually or through an employer. Some have equated the drop of health insurance holders to rising costs and corrupt insurance companies who take payments, but have many conditions for when and where they will pay out for customers.