Tag Archives: Kathleen Sebelius

medical news, national news, political news

Oops! GOP governor tells truth, then backs off

Hey, I always thought Ohio Republican Gov. John Kasich was a straight shooter.

Turns out he needs to get his sights re-set.

Kasich told The Associated Press that the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, is here to stay, that Republicans have no hope of repealing it, even if they win control of the U.S. Senate after the Nov. 4 mid-term election.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/20/politics/kasich-obamacare-here-to-stay/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

‘AP reported this: “‘The opposition to it was really either political or ideological,’ Kasich said of Obamacare. “I don’t think that holds water against real flesh and blood, and real improvements in people’s lives.'”

That sounds pretty darn reasonable. But wait! Gov. Kasich’s people said AP got it wrong. The governor was referring to the ACA’s Medicaid expansion.

The ACA should be repealed and replaced, the governor’s office said — speaking for Kasich.

Here’s the deal, folks.

The ACA is working. Millions of Americans have signed up for health insurance who didn’t have it before. It’s providing comfort to those who prior to the law’s enactment couldn’t afford to be insured.

The ACA rollout was a Keystone Kops affair, to be sure. The computerized system crashed. It was a mess.

Then it got fixed. Yes, the rollout likely caused Kathleen Sebelius her job as health and human services secretary.

I’ll stick with Kasich’s initial view that repeal of the ACA ain’t going to happen.

Congressional Republicans, I’m quite certain, will have no trouble finding other issues with which to pick fights with the president. It’s in their DNA.

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Burwell a lock for HHS boss, but first …

Sylvia Mathews Burwell should be able to skate easily from her job as head of the Office of Management and Budget into her new post as health and human services secretary.

She’ll likely get there, but it will be far from an smooth ride from one high-powered government job to another.

You see, the U.S. Senate — which already has confirmed her to the OMB job — will have this other issue to continue litigating. It’s called the Affordable Care Act. Burwell is now the newest woman on the hot seat in that matter, given that HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has resigned and is likely headed back to Kansas.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/04/sylvia-mathews-burwell-democrats-obamacare-affordable-care-act-105641.html?hp=l4

Sebelius came under intense fire for the handling of the ACA rollout and the collapse of the Healthcare.gov website when the enrollment opened up in January. It all happened on her watch at HHS and she deserved a lot of the pounding she received.

Now she’s on her way out, apparently with few expressions of regret from the White House at her departure.

Burwell is known to be a cool customer who will be able to handle Republican senators’ expected tough grilling during her confirmation hearing. She’ll need all the coolness she can muster, as GOP senators likely are going to beat the daylights out of her over how she intends to implement an established law that Republicans still hate with a passion.

So, as with everything political these days, what’s supposed to be an easy transition will resemble something quite different. Hold on tightly, Ms. Burwell.

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Time for a new HHS secretary

Kathleen Sebelius has served the nation mostly with distinction during her time as Health and Human Services secretary.

Until now.

The rollout of the Affordable Care Act on Oct. 1 as been beset with mountains of trouble, relating mostly to the glitches in the website set up to manage the implementation of the act.

http://nbcpolitics.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/10/19/21040394-sebelius-will-be-a-no-show-at-obamacare-hearing?lite

The mess-up has been huge. Is it Sebelius’s fault that her team of computer technicians haven’t been able to handle the huge traffic flow onto the site? No. However, the foul-ups have occurred on her watch. They involve the unveiling of President Obama’s signature legislative accomplishment. It has gone badly … to say the very least.

Now the HHS boss says she won’t take part in congressional hearings set for next month, citing scheduling conflicts.

I believe it’s time for her resign and hand the job over to someone else.

The criticism of the ACA rollout, of course, comes from congressional Republicans. What does anyone really expect? They’ve been critical of the law since its inception, its approval by Congress, its affirmation by the Supreme Court and its place at the center of the debate over whether to fund the government and increase the federal debt ceiling.

The very least one could have hoped would be for the unveiling of the law, which took effect while Congress was tying itself in knots over the budget, to occur smoothly. Yes, many millions of Americans have sought to enroll in some insurance plan. But didn’t HHS officials realize that going in? Didn’t Secretary Sebelius foresee the need to ensure that the system would work effectively?

The system has crashed repeatedly. The Obama administration admits it’s been a rocky start since the Oct. 1 rollout. Well, do you think?

Kathleen Sebelius has been on the job since the beginning of Barack Obama’s presidency. And as her GOP critics have noted, she had time for an appearance on Jon Stewart’s comedy show, but doesn’t have the time to answer questions from Congress.

It’s time for Sebelius to go.