NASHVILLE — Gov. Phil Bredesen said he would consider accepting the U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary position, but only if it involves making major changes in America’s health care system.

“If it were a case of really being able to help in some fundamental way, something I really believe in which is to create universal health care, I certainly would think about it and talk about it,” Gov. Bredesen told Tennessee Press Association members Thursday night.

“If it’s a matter of administering a big, huge bureaucracy, I’ve already got that job,” Gov. Bredesen said.

Asked what he would do if President Barack Obama offered him the job, the governor said, “I’ll cross that bridge if I come to it.”

The comments came as speculation increases that Gov. Bredesen, an entrepreneur who made millions in managed health care, is under consideration by the Obama administration after former U.S. Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle’s nomination crashed earlier this week.

Meanwhile, health care advocates on the left continue to assail Gov. Bredesen over his cuts to TennCare, the state’s version of Medicaid, back in 2005 when he cut 170,000 people from the program, prompting angry protesters to occupy the state Capitol for days.

On Friday, Tony Garr, executive director of the Tennessee HealthCare Campaign, urged supporters by e-mail to contact Mr. Obama’s Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel and tell him they oppose Gov. Bredesen.

“He presided over massive cuts to Tennessee's Medicaid program and, by all appearances, relished fighting with advocates for the poor more than the advocates of the cuts,” Mr. Garr said. “He made his fortune in the for-profit health insurance industry, raising questions about the sensibility he'd bring _ to say nothing of the political message he'd sent.”

Efforts to contact Bredesen spokeswoman Lydia Lenker this morning were unsuccessful.

For complete details, see tomorrow’s Times Free Press.