Sitting in his bunker-like chambers in the Speaker’s Office, he admitted to looking a little glassy-eyed. “It was an early morning,” he said, but when you have an 18-month-old, most mornings are. While Jacob, his youngest, will soon age out of 4 a.m. wake up calls, Edattel and his wife are expecting their third, a girl, in December.

And because he’s House Speaker John Boehner’s new health policy guru, his early mornings will be bookended by late nights.