I came away from his talk favorably impressed with his grasp of the issues and feeling as though his proposals had a possibility of working- given the chance to do so.
He predicted that, regardless of who won the election (still in doubt at the time), we were about to begin another discussion about healthcare in this country. He also pointed out the fact that those conversations are 0-6 in the last 100 years when it comes to their track record for leading to significant change.
The question he posed was whether or not the circumstances have changed enough to make things different this time.
The problems that he cited are no big surprise to anyone- cost, access, and quality. And I think that we would all agree that two of the biggest contributors to our failure to fix things- complexity and the influence of special interests- have not changed.For what it's worth, at the reception after his talk, I found him to be non-pretentious, approachable, and able to listen and hold his own.
Talking to my wife about it later, I suggested that if Obama were to win, I'd like to see him make Daschle his secretary of HHS. I guess great minds think alike.