Analysts weigh proposed creation of Federal Health Board

Tom Daschle, in line to become Health and Human Services secretary, floated the idea in a recent book.

In his book Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis (Thomas Dunne Books), former Sen. Tom Daschle, D-S.D., who is expected to become secretary of Health and Human Services, proposed creation of a Federal Health Board. The Federal Reserve-style institution would make many decisions about public health care programs that now must be legislated.

What are the pluses and minuses of a Federal Health Board? How would it affect the private health care system? Would it mesh with leading Democratic proposals? And, instead of creating such a board, would it be better to give HHS more power over health care?

In NationalJournal.com's new Expert Blog on health care, Marilyn Werber Serafini posed these questions to a series of experts in the health policy field.

Click here to see their responses.