Kathleen Sebelius: Good Luck In Your Future Endeavors

[Dino Velvet]

What do you guys think? Is this a good thing? Any supporters feeling she was scapegoated? Have we gotten accurate ObamaCare numbers of who actually paid and the number of people now insured who had no insurance before? Once we get to the truth of the matter hopefully things can be fixed to benefit us all. We're all Americans.

http://news.yahoo.com/kathleen-sebelius-resigning-top-hhs-post-223809439--politics.html


Kathleen Sebelius resigning from top HHS post

http://l.yimg.com/os/152/2012/04/21/image001-png_162613.png (http://www.ap.org/) By JULIE PACE 21 hours ago


WASHINGTON (AP) — Embattled Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is resigning as the White House seeks to move past the election-year political damage inflicted by the rocky rollout of President Barack Obama's signature health care law.
Sebelius' resignation comes just over a week after sign-ups closed for the first year of insurance coverage under the so-called Obamacare law. The opening weeks of the enrollment period were marred by widespread website woes, though the administration rebounded strongly by enrolling 7.1 million people by the March 31 deadline, exceeding initial expectations. Enrollment has since risen to 7.5 million as people were given extra time to complete applications.
Even with the late surge in sign-ups, the law remains unpopular with many Americans and Republicans have made it a centerpiece of their efforts to retake the Senate in the fall.
Sebelius' resignation could also set the stage for a contentious confirmation hearing to replace her. In a sign that the White House is seeking to avoid a nomination fight, the president was tapping Sylvia Mathews Burwell, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, to replace Sebelius. Burwell was unanimously confirmed by the Senate for her current post.
A White House official requested anonymity to confirm Sebelius' resignation and Burwell's nomination ahead of the formal announcement. Obama has not nominated anyone to replace Burwell as budget director.
Obama remained publicly supportive of Sebelius throughout the rough rollout, deflecting Republican calls for her resignation. But she was conspicuously not standing by his side last week when he heralded the sign-up surge during an event in the White House Rose Garden.
The official said the 65-year-old Sebelius approached Obama last month about stepping down, telling him that the sign-up deadline was a good opportunity for a transition and suggesting he would be better served by someone who was less of a political target.
A spokeswoman for Sen. Pat Roberts, a Republican from Sebelius' home state of Kansas, called the resignation "a prudent decision" given what she called the total failure of Obamacare implementation.
Sebelius dropped no hints about her resignation Thursday when she testified at a budget hearing. Instead, she received congratulations from Democratic senators on the sign-up surge.
A popular former governor of Kansas, Sebelius has been one of Obama's longest-serving Cabinet officials and his only HHS secretary. She was instrumental in shepherding the health care law through Congress in 2010 and implementing its initial components, including a popular provision that allows young people to stay on their parents' insurance plans until age 26.
But Sebelius' relationship with the White House frayed during the fall rollout of the insurance exchanges that are at the center of the sweeping overhaul. The president and his top advisers appeared caught off guard by the extent of the website woes, with warnings from those working on the technology never making it to the West Wing.
After technical problems crippled online sign-ups after the Oct. 1 launch, the White House sent management expert and longtime Obama adviser Jeffrey Zients to oversee a rescue operation that turned things around by the end of November. After taking helm of the project, Zients said management issues were partly to blame but did not point the finger at any individuals.
Sebelius took personal responsibility for the chaotic launch of the website and asked the HHS inspector general to conduct an investigation. That report is not expected for months.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, a staunch supporter of the health care law, praised Sebelius as a "forceful, effective and essential" secretary.
"Secretary Sebelius was a leader in the long effort to make history for our country with passage of the Affordable Care Act," the California Democrat said in a statement.
In nominating the 48-year-old Burwell, Obama is tapping a Washington veteran with a low-profile and the respect of some Republicans on Capitol Hill. Though she only joined the Obama administration last year, Burwell held several White House and Treasury posts during President Bill Clinton's administration.
Between her stints in the executive branch, Burwell served as president of Wal-Mart's charitable arm and head of the global development program at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
If confirmed, Burwell will have to contend with huge challenges related to the continued implementation of the health overhaul, as well as the divisive politics surrounding the law that show no sign of abating.
On the practical side, the administration has to improve customer service for millions of Americans trying to navigate the new system. There's also a concern that premiums may rise for 2015, since many younger, healthier people appear to have sat out open enrollment season.
On the political front, congressional Republicans remain implacably opposed to Obamacare, even as several GOP governors have accepted the law's expansion of safety-net coverage under Medicaid. GOP opposition means Republicans can be expected to continue to deny additional funds for implementation.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell., R-Ky., welcomed Sebelius' resignation but appeared to indicate an openness to a dialogue with Burwell, the new HHS nominee — even as he declared that "Obamacare has to go."
"I hope this is the start of a candid conversation about Obamacare's shortcomings and the need to protect Medicare," McConnell said.
___
Associated Press writer Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar and Erica Werner in Washington, and John Hanna in Topeka, Kan., contributed to this report.
___
Follow Julie Pace at http://twitter.com/jpaceDC

[Ben]

Kathleen Sebelius Performs One Final Act Of Incompetence:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pe4Yc_uAi2k

[95racer]

Incompetent fuck!! But what else would you expect from government. Actually this is probably resume enhancement. She'll show up at a higher level position somewhere else in DC.

[Dino Velvet]

But what else would you expect from government.

Not too much but basically to hold onto their jobs and/or getting better ones lining their pockets with money as they go along. Every few years they pass out a few pats on the head to make people think they really care about them.

[buttslinger]

There are already pics of her replacement on the net, Sylvia Mathews Burwell,
let's see if she gets through.

[Stavros]

Is she personally to blame or is she taking the rap for the failures of her department? Should the person at the top carry the can or insist on staying to make the department more efficient?

[trish]

The "failures" were pretty limited. Yes, in the States that refused the Medicare extension, coverage for middle class and poorer citizens isn't as good or as cheap as it could be. And yes, because conservative States stalled and waited until the very last minute to set up their exchanges, it was difficult to design and set up a compatible Federal sign-up within the short window of time. That's the problem you face when you insist on a system based on private insurers housed in fifty different States. But the website couldn't have been as poorly designed as some would lead us to believe, because it was up and running only a month after the initial bottleneck. The program is now on schedule. As of last week over 7 million people have signed up__a goal conservatives told us we couldn't possibly reach by this time.

I think Sebelius did a hell of a job (and not at all comparable to the job Mike Brown did after Katrina) getting this huge program up and running given all the resistance by Koch addicted governors and the associated stooges and loonies. In spite of this, millions of uninsured Americans are now covered. No longer can you not get coverage because you've been dropped by one company for "technical" reasons and you now have a pre-existing condition. Thank you Kathleen Sebelius. I am sad to see you go.

[Dino Velvet]

As of last week over 7 million people have signed up

But, out of 7.1 million, have we gotten accurate numbers of the percentage who actually paid? How many of those people had no insurance before? When someone signs up are they covered?

[Dino Velvet]

There are already pics of her replacement on the net, Sylvia Mathews Burwell,
let's see if she gets through.

http://www.hungangels.com/vboard/attachment.php?attachmentid=710488&stc=1&d=1397278398

Nice camel toe on the new HHS lady. Thanks Buttslinger.

[buttslinger]

Republicans think the poor are getting a free ride,
Democrats think big business is getting a free ride.

When, or if, Obamacare works, the welfare surfers, and the healthcare leeches are going to move from behind the plow to in front of the plow, and start pulling with the 9 to 5ers.

The wagon behind the plow is full of national debt, and necessary supplies, only the truly sick should get a ride.

The computer age is here, it's time to flick on the light and get organized.

[buttslinger]

I switched Insurance companies last year, home and car, to AMICA.

They seem more expensive, but they are a coop and send you a rebate at the end of the year. Best of all, they work for the insurer, not the OWNER. The insurers are the owners.
When you wreck your car you get the factory replacement parts ....no bickering with mechanics over every dime.
And when your kitchen floor rots from water damage, they don't send out two hillbilly kids with a hangover, and skip fixing the real expensive damage.

[ILuvGurls]

The "failures" were pretty limited. Yes, in the States that refused the Medicare extension, coverage for middle class and poorer citizens isn't as good or as cheap as it could be.

well what about Oregon, Colorado, Conn, Mary all had the extension....last I heard Or. had failed to sign up a single person to the ACA....


But, out of 7.1 million, have we gotten accurate numbers of the percentage who actually paid?

how many of the 7.1 M were kicked off their plans because they didn't qualify as adequate plans thru ACA

this will be a huge disaster down the road.

[trish]

well what about Oregon, Colorado, Conn, Mary all had the extension....last I heard Or. had failed to sign up a single person to the ACA....
Not a single person! Wow! That's an amazing hyperbole! Last I heard there were over 59000 signed up in Oregon alone. ,

[Dino Velvet]

But, out of 7.1 million, have we gotten accurate numbers of the percentage who actually paid? How many of those people had no insurance before? When someone signs up are they covered?

All I want is information that we should all be asking for.

[95racer]

This whole thing is such a mess that I don't trust any data- especially from the government. Minimal is being said about the affects on the providers, AKA evil doctors.

Doctor's billing staff, usually (1) person in small offices, are spending more than half their day trying to verify insurance coverage. Office managers tell me they have never seen such a mess in trying to get information. Payment to some doctors is behind (3)+ months. One office had to hit their revolver to make payroll.

Being forced into electronic records is costing over $160k for two offices that I interact with. Record data must be kept in off-site servers (so the fed's can get their hands on it).

This is a complete, fucking mess!! No wonder Obama delayed implementing chunks of it until after the next election. Their ultimate goal is government health care. Then you will have real healthcare. Bwaahhaahhaa.

[Dino Velvet]

Have we gotten an update on this(video below link) from Jay Carney?

http://washingtonexaminer.com/carney-no-timetable-for-releasing-information-about-obamacare-sign-ups/article/2547202

W.H. Can't Say How Many Have Paid For ObamaCare Plan And How Many Were Uninsured - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAqQTZ5vLuQ)

[95racer]

Incompetent fuck!! But what else would you expect from government. Actually this is probably resume enhancement. She'll show up at a higher level position somewhere else in DC.

Told ya.......

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/17/us/politics/kathleen-sebelius.html?_r=1

[Dino Velvet]

Told ya.......

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/17/us/politics/kathleen-sebelius.html?_r=1

Y'know, I thought this was from The Onion at first. Kathleen Sebelius must be in more denial and have her head stuck even deeper in sand than worshipers of her former boss. I also encourage her to run.

[trish]

That article gets your dander up? Really?? Will she even decide to run in Kansas? Probably not. It's pure speculation at this point. But she just set up one of the largest government programs ever. One that Americans will be very reluctant to give up once the benefits come rolling in. She succeeded in spite of Republican States and Governors setting up roadblocks and dragging their heels the whole fucking way. Oh there was a bug in the most one the largest and most integrated government websites ever constructed coordinating thousands of private insurers and States with hundreds of thousands of users. It got fixed. Who has their head in the sand? The Congressional Republicans who tried to repeal the ACA forty odd times and failed.

Are all the premiums paid yet? They're not due yet. Let's not move the goal posts.

[Dino Velvet]

When someone's dander is up doesn't it usually mean they are more upset than delighted?

[flabbybody]

Obama needed to recruit a super geek from Amazon or Facebook in order to create a website that would accomplish the enormously complex task of signing people up for Obamacare. Instead he treated the job as patronage and hired a person with zero tech background. The poor woman was doomed from the very start. The prez has been very bad at getting really smart competent people from the private sector for important government jobs.

[Stavros]

Another way of looking at this might be to ask why Governments seem to find creating integrated IT systems for its departments so difficult, not least because this doesn't seem to happen in the military and intelligence services (as far as I know), and because global corporations don't have this problem, and although starting from zero, Facebook and Twitter have been able to create a global network which fits all.

In the UK it was estimated that under the last Labour govt the equivalent of £26 billion was lost on failed schemes, here are some extracts from a report in The Independent in 2010 which indicate the problems -

"Further evidence has emerged over the failings of Labour's most costly programme, the mammoth £12.7bn IT scheme to revolutionise the NHS. The Independent has learnt that just 160 health organisations out of about 9,000 are using electronic patient records delivered under the scheme. The vast majority of those were GP practices. New figures have also revealed that millions of pounds have been paid out in legal fees. The taxpayer has footed a £39.2m bill for "legal and commercial support" for the National Programme for IT (NPfIT).

Government departments right across Whitehall have been guilty of overseeing embarrassing IT failures. A project that was meant to save the Department for Transport (DfT) about £57m eventually cost £81m, and workers at the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) were forced to brush up on their language skills when computer systems gave them messages in German."

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/labours-computer-blunders-cost-16326bn-1871967.html

[trish]

The IT system for ACA has to integrate with all the systems of private insurance agencies. This requires the coordinated efforts on each of the thousands of ends of the connection. In the case of the ACA there wasn't adequate time spent on testing for bugs, largely because of delays due to obstructionism and foot dragging. One also has to remember that the IT-interface was only one part of the overall project. Lot's of people signed up in person at the offices of private insurers, on the phone etc. That required yet another kind of organization. Making sure that all the different policies offered by all the different private insurers were compatible with law was yet another part of the project.

If you ever bought a simple app for your iPhone, or a word processor for your laptop, you know how many different bug fixes and re-installations come after initial purchase. IT-systems come with bugs, in the military, in government and in business. There's no getting around it. That's why there's are always IT guys around to fix 'em.

What makes the ACA network complicated is that the act did not establish a real government healthcare system. It's a private system that's government coordinated. It's not single payer. Private insurers still insist on their own forms. There is very little uniformity. Single payer would have greatly simplified all the paperwork and data processing required.

[Stavros]

Trish, eloquently put...but: "Single payer would have greatly simplified all the paperwork and data processing required."
Is not the problem that a Federal programme would need to inherit and integrate data from 50 states many of which will have gathered the data using different, and incompatible software? Isn't this always the problem with new IT systems that attempt to integrate pre-existing one's? That is why, I think, by starting at zero, Facebook and twitter can have a global membership all using the same template.

[buttslinger]

On one level, the USA is all about competition and money.

Insurance companies compete with each other.
Even if Obamacare was carved on stone tablets by God, you would have republicans, insurance companies, doctors, big pharma, ...you'd have everybody disagreeing and fighting, that's the way we do it.

[flabbybody]

trish, Richard Nixon knew single payer was DOA 40 years ago when he tested the waters with his own version of it. The insurance lobby in the US will never let the government take away their precious revenue base so Obama needed to come up with something that kept them in the game. I suppose ACA was the best we could have hoped for. But to pick a person like Sebelius to try to make it work was just unforgivably stupid. When you need a code writer don't hire a politician

[trish]

Secretary of Health and Human Services is not a programming job. If one were to seeking to appoint someone to that position, one might look for...oh, I don’t know...maybe someone who served as an Insurance Commissioner for eight years. No doubt, Sebellius was a political appointee. But I think she did a good job. Yes, there was a glitch in the software. Are you saying Microsoft never had any bugs and glitches in any of the rollouts of its software? ‘Cause if you are, I’d like to know what product that was. I’m sorry she had to resign. But it was inevitable that she would draw fire. Anyone in that post at that time would have drawn fire and eventually have to resign.