The Obama Memos: The Verdict on Malpractice
Posted by Ryan Lizza
Today, I’m posting a memo to the President that includes Barack Obama’s handwritten decision at the end of the document. The memo—one of several I obtained for a piece in this week’s New Yorker—was sent to Obama on July 1, 2009, and came back from the Oval Office the following day.
The title of the memo is “Information on Medical Malpractice Reform Options,” and it was sent to Obama by two of his aides: Nancy-Ann DeParle, who was at the time running the White House Office of Health Reform and is now one of Obama’s deputy chiefs of staff; and Susan Sher, a health-care adviser and longtime friend of Michelle Obama who had been promoted to chief of staff to the First Lady a month before this memo was written. (Sher has since departed the White House and returned to Chicago.)