Washington — President-elect Barack Obama has chosen Thomas A. Daschle, the former Senate majority leader, as the next secretary of health and human services, reports Roll Call, a Capitol Hill newspaper.

The job would give Mr. Daschle, a close adviser to Mr. Obama, oversight of a $700-billion budget that finances 11 agencies, including the National Institutes of Health. He is also expected to play a key role in Mr. Obama’s efforts to expand health-care coverage.

It’s unclear what Mr. Daschle’s appointment would mean for science policy and research funds because the former senator, a Democrat from South Dakota, did not focus on those issues during his 25-year career in Congress. While he supports federal financing of stem-cell research, he told The New York Times in 2001 that he was “very uncomfortable’‘ with human cloning, even for research purposes.

Since losing his Senate seat to Sen. John Thune, a Republican, in 2004, Mr. Daschle has sought to distinguish himself on health-care issues, co-writing a book titled Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis. —Kelly Field