ccording to the California Health Care Foundation, the U.S. spends 4.3 times more money on healthcare than on national defense. And yet, approximately 44 million Americans are without health insurance. For every dollar we spend to defend ourselves from foreign threats, we spend over four dollars on domestic threats—that is, the threat of illness and injury. And yet, the massive amount of money spent on keeping Americans healthy isn’t enough to help us all. We remain a nation where millions of citizens are uninsured, unprotected, and utterly exposed.

However, these uninsured have been given a reason to hope for change: President Barack Obama promises “quality” and “affordable” healthcare coverage for all. But what will all this hope and this change bring us? Will everyone eventually receive legitimate healthcare?

Excuse me for being pessimistic, but let’s face it: probably not. In order for healthcare reform to occur, special interests must be kept far away from the President’s closest advisors, especially those planning to oversee the massive plan to overhaul America’s healthcare system. Obama told us he would do this. But the President lied. Look no further than two of his most significant appointments: Tom Daschle and Eric Holder.

Not too long after his election, Obama designated Daschle, the former Senate Majority Leader, Secretary of Human and Health Services. Unfortunately for Daschle, the former congressional leader failed to accurately report and pay his income taxes (a $146,000 “oversight!”). Fortunately for the American people, his name was withdrawn from consideration. Why fortunate? Besides the private limousine he “forgot” to pay taxes on, his ties to the big-business healthcare industry juggernauts are astounding. After he lost his senatorial re-election bid in 2004, he worked for law firm Alston and Bird LLP as a “special policy advisor”—a fancy name for a lobbyist, coined because the law forbids a United States Senator from being a lobbyist for one year after leaving the Senate. According to Bloomberg News, Daschle helped the firm make $5.8 million between January and September of 2008; 60 percent of that $5.8 million came from clients of the healthcare industry. In addition, according to Daschle’s financial disclosure statement, the American Health Insurance Plans (a trade organization that represents health insurers) paid Daschle more than $390,000 to make speeches on its behalf. To top it all off, his wife, Linda, lobbied for Schering-Plough—one of the most disreputable drug companies around—to try to extend the company’s patent on Claritin. The drug’s original price has recently and inexplicably increased by more that 50 percent, four times the rate of inflation.

Though Daschle’s gone, Obama has appointed Eric Holder as Attorney General. Holder, the former Deputy Attorney General under the Clinton administration, worked for Covington and Burling, a very influential law firm and lobbying shop. His lobbying connections extend into the health care industry, where Holder represented Merck—yet another cheating drug company—in a sordid Medicaid over-billing case. Merck gave free Vioxx and Zocor pills to doctors at a very low cost in order to treat low-income patients. The catch? These patients were deliberately given additional doses of medicine so they would become addicted. Accordingly, after the patients left the hospital, they continued to take the drug at the expense of the Medicaid system. Holder helped Merck get out easy; the company had to pay $650 million in the resulting settlement, a miniscule amount considering the tremendous profits they made from selling those drugs.

Now, you may ask: why do these questionable appointments matter? Well, they tell us either of two things:

1. Though Obama intends to “change” the healthcare system, he is forced to appoint these special-interest advocates to maintain a bipartisan image, or

2. Obama seriously believes that they will break off from their previous ties to construct an affordable and efficient healthcare system.

I highly doubt the latter. Remember when the audacious Hillary Clinton decided to challenge the drug company juggernauts as the chairwoman of the Task Force on National Health Care Reform? The companies launched massive propaganda campaigns against her; and now, according to the New York Times, Clinton (now Secretary of State) is one of the top recipients of donations from the healthcare industry—although most of those funds were handed over to her during her years in the Senate. Chances are that if Daschle and Holder decided to turn their backs on their previous employers, similar campaigns would be launched against any new initiative for national healthcare, and the entire effort would likely amount to nothing.

That leaves us with the first option: that Obama had to appoint these high-profile political figures to please not only Democrats, but Republicans as well. Isn’t it odd that Republican Senator Orrin Hatch, co-author of the Hatch-Waxman Act, which promoted drug-company deregulation, called Daschle a “great choice” for the position? Let’s not forget about the pressure that Democrats have placed on the new Obama administration. Both Daschle and Holder represent stagnant politics instead of the politics of “change.” Both are connected to the Clintons, arguably the most influential duo in American politics.

It will be interesting to see how Barack Obama tackles the healthcare issue. According to the New York Times, Obama’s top choice to replace Daschle is Kathleen Sebelius, a moderate Democrat from a mostly Republican state. Will change occur? I’m not sure. But hopefully the grassroots support Obama garnered during his campaign will pressure his administration enough to ensure the development of an effective universal healthcare system, something America desperately needs.