Daschle earned $220,000 from health care industry ( Ethics)
hostednews/ap/ ^ | 2/01/09 | DOUGLASS K. DANIEL

 

Daschle earned $220,000 from health care industry

Tom Daschle collected nearly a quarter of a million dollars in fees in the last two years speaking to leaders of the industry President Barack Obama wants him to reform as the administration's health secretary. That was just a portion of the more than $5.2 million the former South Dakota senator earned as he advised insurers and hospitals and worked in other industries — real estate, energy and telecommunications among them, according to a financial statement filed with the Office of Government Ethics.

Daschle's finances are drawing additional scrutiny because he failed to pay his taxes properly. Although he has made amends with the government, senators said Sunday they are awaiting guidance from the committee reviewing Daschle's nomination before deciding whether the tax problem could stall or even derail his confirmation.

Obama has said that no one in his administration who has lobbied on a set of issues within the past two years can deal with the same subject matter.

The president has already approved a few exceptions, one of them a former Goldman Sachs lobbyist picked to be chief of staff for Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. Daschle, however, is not a registered lobbyist. Jenny Backus, a spokeswoman for Daschle, said the hundreds of thousands of dollars he earned in speaking fees from health care interests do not pose conflict for the health care reform Obama wants him to lead.

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