Posted on 01/06/2009 11:52:26 AM PST by BGHater
President-elect Barack Obama has offered the job of surgeon general to Sanjay Gupta, the neurosurgeon and correspondent for CNN and CBS, according to two sources with knowledge of the situation.
Gupta has told administration officials that he wants the job, and the final vetting process is under way. He has asked for a few days to figure out the financial and logistical details of moving his family from Atlanta to Washington but is expected to accept the offer.
When reached for comment today, Gupta did not deny the account but declined to comment.
The offer followed a two-hour Chicago meeting in November with Obama, who said that Gupta could be the highest-profile surgeon general in history and would have an expanded role in providing health policy advice, the sources said. Gupta later spoke with Tom Daschle, Obama's White House health czar and nominee for Health and Human Services secretary, and other advisers to the president-elect.
The Michigan-born son of Indian and Pakistani parents, Gupta has always been drawn to health policy. He was a White House fellow in the late 1990s, writing speeches and crafting policy for Hillary Clinton. His appointment would give the administration a prominent official of Southwest Asian descent and a skilled television spokesman.
Gupta, who hosts "House Call" on CNN, has discussed the job offer with his bosses at CBS and CNN to make sure he could be released from his contractual obligations, the sources said.
His role as journalist and physician have sometimes overlapped. During the 2003 Iraq invasion, Gupta was embedded with a Navy unit called Devil Docs and, while covering its mission, performed brain surgery five times, the first of which was on a 2-year-old Iraqi boy.
(Excerpt) Read more at voices.washingtonpost.com ...
Solicitor General Ryan Seacrest
USDA Director Emeril Lagasse
Gitmo warden Werner Von Klemperer
FBI Head T. J. Hooker
FDA Director Dr. Seuss
Supreme Court Justices Judges Mathis, Judy and Joe Brown
FCC Commissioner Oprah Winfrey and Billy Martin
WHAT IS NEXT??!?!?
For being a brain surgeon, he is sure causing alot of heads to explode on DU, LOL!
Is this a cartoon administration?
Gotcha. But the Rats won this time.
Don’t expect them to nominate a Conservative. That’s nuts.
Sanjay Gupta was a special advisor to Hillary Clinton.
Not that it makes him a bad doctor, but with the push for socialized medicine and his long run with Communist News Network...
do you REALLY think this is a good idea?
Of course not like I would expect anything else from Obama, but seriously, are there NO politicians or anything left in the country that DIDN’T work for the Clintons?
This is the Clinton adminstration with a black face.
“Having worked with the U.S. Public Health Service, and knowing what I know about the agency, I would argue that Gupta’s background in medicine and journalism would in fact make him a very good candidate for the job for any number of reasons.”
Isn’t the Surgeon General’s job as much about communicating on health issues as it is about anything else? If so he could be effective at that part of the job.
““He was a White House fellow in the late 1990s, writing speeches and crafting policy for Hillary Clinton.”
Mandatory universal socialized health non care has arrived!!!”
You said it!!
I think that’s what all the “I like this pick” Freepers don’t realize.
Sure, he might be an accomplished physician, but he is the one who was behind Hillary’s healthcare that everyone was screaming about.
And now he’s Surgeon General?
“Let us not descend to the gutter level of DU! I agree with some more intelligent posts here saying this is Obama’s best pick so far. “
Let’s see how well you like it when you are standing in line for your heart surgery, or chemo, or whatever else the wonders of socialized medicine will bring you.
For some of us, it’s not kneejerk. It MEMORY. MEMORY of Hillary’s Healthcare fiasco.
Hey, that would make just as much sense! I mean she DID work on a network that had the astronaut planting a flag on the moon as it’s logo!
Alright I was using a bit of superlatives. But the point remains, Dr. Gupta is a qualified neuro-surgeon and the elected president has the right to appoint the person of his choice. Gupta may not be a flaming conservative, or a 100% pro-lifer, but those are not required qualifications per our political system.
Dr Gupta is for socialized medicine? Have you got any link to that?
Dobbs likes the pick - that works for me.
What are they saying about him??
It’s OK - he does look like a good pick. Dobbs likes him too. And Rick Warren works well for the invocation ...
He was Hillary’s advisor for Hillary’s Universal Health Care Plan.
Here is an article in which is he whining about California voting down universal health care from Feb of 2008. he also hosted a show called “Broken Government Health Care”.
http://www.cnn.com/HEALTH/blogs/paging.dr.gupta/2008/02/learning-from-universal-healthcare.html
Learning from universal health care proposals
By Dr. Sanjay Gupta
Chief Medical Correspondent
I am sure many of you watched the debate last night and noticed that the first 40 minutes (of a 90-minute debate) were all about health care. As a member of the audience, I saw both Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton talk about how similar their plans were and the differences as well. As I blogged yesterday, there are some distinctions, which are important for you, the voter, to know.
What you may not know is that there was a recent proposal here in California to create a universal health care plan for all Californians. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, along with members of the state Senate had put forward ABX1, which would create a system of universal coverage. Just this week, it was overwhelmingly voted down in the senate health committee by a vote of 7-1.
I find it interesting the two states that put forward concrete universal health care plans, a core Democratic issue, were both led by Republican governors - Mitt Romney in Massachusetts and Schwarzenegger in California. I also wonder if the members of the Senate Health Committee in California looked at the successes and failures of the Massachusetts plans before voting their own plan down. While more people than ever are covered in Massachusetts, the cost overruns have been more than $400 million.
So, here is the question. Looking at these two states, does their history make the argument that universal health care cannot be achieved in the United States or that it can be achieved, but only at the national level? What do you think we have learned about the country from looking at these two states?
Programming note: Watch “Broken Government: Health Care - Critical Condition” Sunday night at 11 ET on CNN.
I thought he offered the job to a Chicago area neurologist.
A-HA! Someone Gets a Gold Star!!!! You got my underground joke with the NASA thing.....
Check out my tagline!
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