Kathleen Sebelius

Both the House and Senate health reform proposals would force insurance plans to follow the recommendations as part of a minimum swath of services.

A day after Kathleen Sebelius, head of the Department of Health and Human Services, said that a public health insurance plan is “not the essential element”of the administration’s strategy to fix the nation’s health care system, Sen. Russ Feingold (D) has made clear that he disagrees. Calling the government-backed option “a fundamental part” of health [...]

The Associated Press just reworked its earlier piece stemming from a morning interview with Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. No longer does it include the secretary’s de-emphasis of the public plan, on which I just posted. Instead, it’s got her trumpeting the merits of such an option.
“I think there is a lot of [...]

So do they or don’t they?
Yesterday, President Obama stood before the nation’s largest doctors’ group and made his strongest case yet for the creation of a government-backed insurance plan to compete with private companies. Such an option is necessary, Obama told members of the American Medical Association, “[to] force waste out of the system and [...]

Lost in the din over Sen. Arlen Specter’s decision to switch parties today was Health and Human Services Secretary-nominee Kathleen Sebelius’ confirmation hearing. Well, she was confirmed by the Senate, by a vote of 65 to 31.

The national politics of the Sebelius fight have been complicated by the politics of Kansas.

I was just talking to Wendy Wright, the president of the conservative group Concerned Women for America, about the nomination of Gov. Kathleen Sebelius (D-Kans.) to run the Department of Health and Human Services. The group opposes the nomination, and Wright is raising some questions about the timing of the swine flu crackdown so close [...]

Is Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kans.) getting cold feet about supporting the nomination of Gov. Kathleen Sebelius (D-Kans.) to lead the Department of Health and Human Services? According to CQ, Brownback has said it’s “getting harder and harder” to support Sebelius. The impetus was her veto of House Sub for SB 218 in Kansas, a bill [...]

All 41 Republican senators have signed an open letter asking Democratic leadership not to use the filibuster-proof reconciliation process to pass health care reform, a sure sign that the threat of reconciliation, which would allow the Senate to pass a health care reform bill with 51 votes instead of 60–issued again yesterday by Secretary of [...]

A few big announcements from the Obama administration on the health care front today: Confirming reports over the weekend that he was set to do so, President Obama officially named Kansas’ Democratic Gov. Kathleen Sebelius as his nominee for secretary of health and human services. You may recall that Sebelius’ predecessor as the HHS nominee, [...]