Amgen, Abbott Labs Likely Pleased at Appointment of Daschle to HHS

(MoneyWatch)  Tom Daschle's law firm is a lobbyist for Abbott Laboratories; his wife has lobbied for Amgen. Those are just two of the drug- and health-related potential conflicts that President-elect Obama's new secretary of Health and Human Services will bring to the job.

In addition to Abbott, the former Senate majority leader's law firm, Alston & Bird, lobbies for Prime BioSolutions, the Mayo Clinic, CVS Caremark, the National Association for Home Care and Hospice, and HealthSouth. Linda Hall Daschle, a lobbyist at Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz, has also lobbied in the past for cigarette makers Lorillard Tobacco and Philip Morris Cos.

Linda has promised never to lobby her husband (she concentrates mainly on transport clients now.) Daschle was one of the senators most committed to the failed Clinton health reform plan of the 1990s.

Here's Daschle's current plan for healthcare reform:

• Medicare should be more outcome-oriented in payments.
• People should be allowed to buy insurance from the same plan that covers federal workers.
• Health insurance should be mandatory.
• He also believes the government should create a Federal Health Board to answer health questions for the government (like the FDA and CDC are not enough).

Such a board would oversee Medicare and Medicaid -- and doubtless give critics of big government a lot of ammunition to play with.