Multiple news sources, including NBC News, are reporting that Former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-ND) "has accepted President-elect Barack Obama's offer to be secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services," and will therefore be nominated to the position. In that role, Daschle would be in charge of the FDA, Medicare and Medicaid, among other programs.

Former Sen. Daschle is considered an expert in health policy, having published a book earlier this year entitled "Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis). Recently, he has also "been working with former Senate leaders on recommendations to expand health coverage."

Strong praise of the pick has been coming in from both sides of the political aisle, with former Republican Rep. John Porter, who now chairs medical research advocacy group Research!America, saying that "it is a perfect appointment" and that Daschle will "do an outstanding job."

Top health policy blogger Ezra Klein is thrilled with the pick, and suggests what the appointment means for Obama's healthcare agenda:

"This is huge news, and the clearest evidence yet that Obama means to pursue comprehensive health reform. You don't tap the former Senate Majority Leader to run your health care bureaucracy. That's not his skill set. You tap him to get your health care plan through Congress. You tap him because he understands the parliamentary tricks and has a deep knowledge of the ideologies and incentives of the relevant players. You tap him because you understand that health care reform runs through the Senate. And he accepts because he has been assured that you mean to attempt health care reform."

"Tom Daschle is a bold choice for HHS secretary and a sign of hope that real change to fix our nation's health care crisis will soon come," writes SEIU's Anna Burger on Politico's daily online debate The Arena. "It will take real leadership to push through a solution to this crisis, and now Tom Daschle is in a position to provide it...It is going to be up to all of us -- citizens, business and government -- to fix our health care system, and it is good to see government moving in the right direction."

(A version of this blog also posted at Healthcare United).