Finally, Someone in the Obamacare Mess Got Fired

Perhaps they were just being gallant not to probe further, but the news media dutifully reported Kathleen Sebelius’ abrupt departure from her post as Secretary of the Health and Human Services (HHS) agency as a resignation. The Affordable Care Act was forecast well before its launch to be a “train wreck” by those on the right anxious to be proven right, but at time time the disastrous ill-preparedness of the website being developed by her agency was unknown. Republicans, with their 40–plus repeals of Obamacare in the House, would today still be ceaselessly attempting to undermine the Act even if the launch had gone
Announcement of 7.1 million sign-ups, but Secretary Sebelius not at the podium
well, but the miserable performance of HHS was a surprise gift that conferred validation to their cause like nothing else they could have wished for.

Sebelius was fired (or asked to resign; same thing), make no mistake. Like Kremlinologists divining power shifts by observing who was present and who missing in the Soviet Union's leadership at the May Day parades, we should take note that, when President Obama stood in the Rose Garden on April 2 at the end of six months of open enrollment to announce that 7.1 million had signed up, at his side stood Vice President Joe Biden. Where was Kathleen Sebelius? She was in attendance but went unmentioned in the President’s thank yous.

It must have come as something of a surprise for her. Sebelius announced her resignation and was effectively gone — no notice — no announcing that she would leave at the end of some future month, as is the usual practice. On “Meet the Press”, two days after her alleged resignation was announced, Andrea Mitchell popped the question: "People are asking, were you pushed or did you jump?" to which the secretary averred that she had thought “at the end of open enrollment was a logical time to leave” and had earlier told the President “you really should begin to look for the next secretary”.

But that doesn’t square with what she had said days earlier to a Huffington Post interviewer who asked, “Do you see yourself sticking around until November for round two”. “Well, absolutely”, she answered. “So you’re staying for a while?” “I’m in” said Sebelius. That was March 31. Two weeks later she was out.

And with scarcely a skipped beat, the President announced his replacement appointment, Sylvia Matthews Burwell, currently the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget. Senate Republicans would have some explaining to do were they to block Ms Burwell after confirming her appointment as budget director 96 to 0. But it is expected that they will take the opportunity of her confirmation hearings to put all the faults of the Affordable Care Act on display.

There had been calls for madam secretary to resign, as the one ultimately responsible for the botched system, but Obama chose to wait it out until the final sign-up deadline before showing her the door. Sooner would have been an admission of failed management, which would redound to the President.

Which it certainly should.

Mark Shields, who holds up the left end of the weekly debate with fellow columnist and conservative David Brooks on Friday’s PBS NewsHour, acknowledged that he had known Kathleen Sebelius for 46 years. He worked to shift blame, calling modern cabinet chiefs no more than figureheads, that

“everything is micro-managed from the White House. The idea that the healthcare plan, the biggest initiative of this administration…was not going to be managed from the White House … just couldn’t be true...They were in it up to their eyebrows so when it went wrong , somebody had to take the hit, and that was Kathleen Sebelius.”.

But the truth was precisely the opposite. When the site blew up we had said, “You’ve got to wonder, how could the President have paid so little attention to the status of what is endlessly called his ‘signature’ achievement that he would say on the same day the government’s Internet insurance exchange crashed that people will be able to shop ‘the same way you'd order a plane ticket on Kayak or a TV on Amazon’". Hadn’t he even tried it? In the evening hours in the White House residence, wasn’t he curious from time to time before launch to see if it worked? And to be all over HHS when he found out it didn’t?

Instead, he had apparently taken the word of the equally non-technical Sebelius that “we’re on target”, as she said in a July interview after months of “projecting optimism and confidence”?

On the NewsHour, David Brooks added, “It is also true the secretaries do not run their agencies … the agencies run the agencies”. Tell that to Rumsfeld and Gates. Even if true, if “Yes, Minister” has crossed the Atlantic and the bureaucrats work to confound the boss, does it therefore become an excuse for Sebelius not to have any idea that the premier product of her agency was in trouble? It was for her to sound the alarm repeatedly in the months leading up to the roll-out. Instead, reports were that she misallocated her time traveling the country to promote Obamacare, instead of constantly monitoring the progress of the hugely complex system. Instead, a Wall Street Journal editorial called HHS credibility “a running joke”.

There was a redeeming moment in that HuffPost interview. Sebelius said she had been touring call centers around the country to rally the 14,000 workers at 17 sites who manned the phones to answer questions. “I can’t tell you how many of the call center workers tell me that they feel like they’re doing the most important work they’ve ever done”, said Ms Sebelius. “People are in tears of joy; they tell them personal stories, family stories, about finally having the opportunity to make sure they won’t go bankrupt if they get sick, that they can take care of their kids and their family. They never thought they would have this opportunity”.