Bredesen's first term as governor of Tennessee was largely marked by a crisis in funding for TennCare, which provided health care to low-income Tennesseans. Bredesen, who took office in 2003, cut about 170,000 adults from the program and reduced benefits for thousands more. Progressive health blogger Ezra Klein called it "gutting TennCare." (Though Klein noted that Bredesen didn't have many other options in the financial climate at the time.)

Bredesen's Web site notes that the governor preserved coverage for children and the elderly. In 2006, he created a program called "Cover Tennessee," which offers insurance to Tennesseans who might otherwise have trouble getting it such as people who own their own businesses or the severely ill.

Shortly after Obama's election, Bredesen wrote an op-ed promoting Cover Tennessee in the Wall Street Journal, pointing out the success of the program's free check-ups and mammograms as well as its generics-only prescription drug program.

"Having been badly burned by uncontrolled growth in costs in Tennessee's Medicaid program (TennCare once gobbled up a third of the state's budget), we proceeded cautiously with CoverTN and have been rewarded with good control of costs," he wrote. "What we're finding is that even in health care, when people know that there are limits, they work to manage their costs."

To that end, Bredesen has proposed that everyone should "pay a little something for everything" in order to reduce costs overall. "It is simple economics that if you want someone to make efficient choices, they have to have a little skin in the game, some personal responsibility."

The governor's other key cost-control ideas: pay for important procedures before elective ones and "pay for what works," such as opting for generic drugs over brand-name pharmaceuticals.

Health Industry Ties

Bredesen's private sector work bound him closely to the health insurance industry. Those ties could make the governor vulnerable to ethics rules established by the Obama administration to separate government officials from the industries in which they worked.

However, Bredesen has at times spoken out against the pharmaceutical industry, saying, "It defies common sense that we would agree to buy whatever some company puts on the market, whether or not it offers better results, whether or not there are less expensive or more cost-effective alternatives." His Cover Tennessee program relies on generic drugs, a sticking point for many in the pharmaceutical industry.

Accountability and Open Government

Bredesen's focus on making state government both more transparent and more accountable to voters is similar to the aims of the Obama administration.

The Tennessee Democrat established what his Web site calls "the toughest ethics rules in the history of Tennessee's executive branch."

Bredesen also ended closed-door budget hearings, "allowing taxpayers to see for the first time the decisions that are made on how their money is spent," according to his Web site.

2008 Vice Presidential Hopes

In the 2008 presidential election, Bredesen refrained from endorsing either Hillary Rodham Clinton or Barack Obama during their epic fight for the Democratic nomination, leading many in Tennessee to wonder if the governor was hoping to be added to either ticket as vice president.

Before Obama emerged as the winner, Bredesen made the rounds on TV talk shows, offering himself as a sort of arbiter of the Democratic nomination battle and proposing a convention of superdelegates to be held prior to the 2008 Democratic National Convention.

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