Kathleen Sebelius is leaving her post as Secretary of Health with a mixed legacy because she wasn’t able to effectively meet the enormous challenges of the role. Could anyone? It’s doubtful. But nobody ever said making the biggest changes to healthcare in nearly 50 years was going to be a cakewalk. Still, the mark of a good leader is knowing your limitations. On my list of things Kathleen Sebelius got wrong, failing to appoint a CEO to set up and run HealthCare.gov is right at the top. It would have made communication a lot easier and maybe they could have even done all the end-to-end testing that needed to be done before HealthCare.gov was rolled out.
Unfortunately for Sebelius it may not have mattered who was in this role if the administration was keen to damn the torpedoes to launch the website on deadline. On the other hand, there were more than 7 million sign-ons for Obamacare insurance on her watch, if those numbers are accurate. She also took a stand and publicly overruled an FDA decision to allow the emergency contraceptive Plan B to be sold over the counter to teens. Here is some excellent reading discussing some of those points.
Don’t dismiss her: The New Yorker’s Amy Davidson cites the 7.5 million Sebelius said have enrolled in health plans through ACA’s exchanges. She says she had some “real accomplishments, and it’s too easy, and a little cheap, to just dismiss her as a disaster.”
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HealthCare.gov will haunt her: Website fiasco will taint Sebelius – This Politico story by David Nather takes the point of view that Democrats furious with the Obamacare rollout, particularly HealthCare.gov’s litany of problems, quickened her exit. But it also points out that by setting a goal of 7 million sign-ons to HealthCare.gov, she created a pretty big challenge for herself that was ultimately met but not without a lot of reorganization between the portal’s launch and now.
She wasn’t a good manager: Kathleen Sebelius’ experience regulating insurers and working with Republicans as the governor of Kansas were two big advantages she brought to the job, but New Republic’s Jonathan Cohen notes that a strong management style was lacking.
Mission accomplished: Ezra Klein’s article, Kathleen Sebelius is resigning now because Obamacare has won, drew a decent amount of praise and ire for going further than other publications to celebrate Sebelius’ accomplishments. He makes the point that Sebelius communicated to the White House that she “felt confident in the trajectory for enrollment and implementation,” and it made sense for her to step aside at the end of the initial enrollment period.
Filling her shoes: What Sebelius Left Undone – The article in Time focuses on Sibelius’ successor Sylvia Mathews Burwell, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, and the challenges she will face, provided she is confirmed. The remaining components of the Obamacare rollout include implementing the employer mandate and small business exchange, among others. But it also points out that without having to worry about policy making so much as managing the rollout, Burwell may have an easier time than Sebelius ever did.
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