news_pic.thumbnail.jpgBetraying what David Sirota calls "his deeply corrupt attitude about health care policy" Tennessee governor Phil Bredesen, rumored to be among President Obama’s finalists for HHS Secretary, makes quite clear who his constituency is.

[Bredesen] took a swipe at his opponents, saying that "advocacy groups don’t matter nearly as much as the pharmaceutical groups, the hospitals, the doctors’ groups. There’s a lot of very powerful interest groups that will play in this thing." 

A former heath care industry executive, once he became governor Phil Bredesen oversaw the single largest cutback in government health care programs ever.

Here’s what two health care advocates say about Phil Bredesen for HHS:

"A lot of elected officials are in bed with the insurance industry, but Phil Bredesen doesn’t stop there. He let them pay to redecorate his mansion. We can’t think of anyone more wrong for health care reform or more wrong for America," said Jacki Schechner, spokeswoman for Health Care for America Now. "This is a guy whose single greatest health care achievement is stripping 200,000 people of health care coverage in Tennessee – a move that was not only bad policy but an unconscionable act."

Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA, said if Obama named Bredesen to head HHS, it would create "a firestorm" and lead to "enormous confusion and anger among the very people you need to help get health care reform enacted. Gov. Bredesen presided over the largest public health cutback in the history of our nation so it would cause enormous difficulty for President Obama if Gov. Bredesen joined the health reform team because he represents the antithesis of what the president is trying to achieve."

Is this who President Obama wants to run America’s health care marathon, especially after seeing his first choice go down for his extensive connections and accumulated wealth from the health insurance industry, as much as the chauffered Cadillac?