Daschle - Is He Ethically Fit For Secretary of HHS?

Today's blog reflects three weeks of my experience as a grandfather at an HMO's hospital's Neonatal Intensive Care Unit where two prematurely born grandchildren (weighing about 1-1/2 pounds each) have received superb care. The regional facility is modern, equipped with all of the technology that one would wish for in an NICU. But what has made the experience noteworthy is not high-tech monitors, beeping signals, computers and devices, it is the ethics, integrity and skill of the physicians, nurses and other staff charged with the difficult task of caring for very high risk premature babies. The parents of these high risk babies must have absolute confidence in the information and advice they are given. Their decision-making and their children's survival and well-being requires trust.

As a former health care attorney and experienced physician, I am familiar with the "compromises" sometimes made by HMOs, PPOs, other insurers and health care professionals. These compromises, reflecting overt and subtle conflicts of interest, result in denials of optimal care and substitutions of "acceptable" for medically/scientifically proved superior care. Sometimes, like art, the philosophy seems to be "do what you can get away with" rather than what is best for the patient.

In the context of the ethics and integrity of the health care system, that I read with disappointment today's NY Times front page story that Mr. Daschle, Obama's "pick for secretary of health and human services . . . failed to pay more than $140,000 in taxes, mostly for free use of a car and driver that had been provided to him by a prominent businessman . . . ." If the story is true, Mr. Daschle is not ethically fit to serve as secretary of health and human services and his nomination should be withdrawn.