Healthcare - Change #1

Obama hopes to avoid Clinton health care missteps
By KEVIN FREKING – 13 hours ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Barack Obama and his aides are determined not to repeat the mistakes the Clinton administration made 15 years ago in trying to revamp the nation's health care system. That means applying some of the lessons learned — moving fast, seizing momentum and not letting it go.
Tom Daschle, Obama's point man on the issue, discussed the early strategy, although details of Obama's proposals won't be finalized for a while. Already, however, the political and public relations parts are coming into place.
The strategy begins with giving people the chance to highlight their concerns and experiences. Daschle invited people around the nation to hold what amounts to house parties from Dec. 15-31. Obama's transition team will gather the information from those meetings and post the material on its Web site, http://change.gov.
By asking anybody and everybody to share their health care experiences, Daschle is confronting one of the major criticisms of 15 years ago: that the effort to craft former President Bill Clinton's plan for universal coverage was too secretive.