Sebelius Resigned Same Week as Obamacare Victory Lap
Thursday, April 10, 2014
The New York Times reports that President Obama accepted Sebelius’s resignation earlier this week. He intends to nominate the current director of the Office of Management and Budget, Sylvia Mathews Burwell, to replace Sebelius.
As recently as last week, some suggested the end of the first enrollment period was the moment when she could be let go with “minimum drama and maximum benefit.” According to the Times, Sebelius herself agreed. She “approached Mr. Obama and began a series of conversations about her future” and suggested the end of the enrollment period might be “an opportunity for change.”
Republicans began calling for Sebelius’s ouster last October when it became clear that the launch of the Obamacare exchanges, overseen by HHS, was a disaster. In early November, 10 Republican senators sent a letter to the President urging him to ask for her resignation. At the time, the President stood by Sebelius.
The rollout of Obamacare in October was supposed to be a triumph for Democrats, the moment when Americans would stop basing their opinions of the law on what they had heard about it and start basing them on the benefits it provided. But the launch of the health exchanges proved to be first a technical and then a political disaster.
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