Obama taps Sebelius as HHS chief

AIG may be grabbing the boldface headlines today, but another acronym occupies us today: HHS. We finally have our new nominee for Health and Human Services, and as expected, it's Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius (photo [1]).

The healthcare reformer is set for formal nomination today at a White House ceremony, and she'll hit the ground running tomorrow at a healthcare policy summit. Among her qualifications, supporters say, is her continual battle for healthcare reform and expanded healthcare coverage in her home state--in spite of the fact that most of her attempts were frustrated by the Republicans dominating Kansas politics. She also is a former insurance commissioner, so she has a technical grasp of the issues involved.

Some say that, with a Democratic Congress, Sebelius will have a chance to effect some of the changes she strove so mightily to achieve back home--but this time, for the entire nation. At least in the realm of expanding insurance coverage, she has Big Pharma on her side. We'll see how she fares with the rest of the business world.

- read the Washington Post story [2]
- check out the profile [3] in the New York Times

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