L-R: Kathleen Sebelius, Barack Obama, and Nancy-Ann DeParle at the White House on Monday, Mar. 2

On March 2, President Obama announced his picks for Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the National White House Office for Health Reform.  Kathleen Sebelius, the governor of Kansas and an early Obama supporter, will lead HHS if confirmed by the Senate, while Nancy-Ann DeParle will head White House health reform efforts.

Both candidates bring considerable health policy experience to their new positions. Before being twice elected the Democratic governor of Kansas, Sebelius, 60, served as the state’s insurance commissioner for eight years. The Associated Press said (Mar. 2) she “is seen as a steady hand and an experienced public official who knows how to work across political lines” but also said she “represents Obama’s backup plan and will have to establish a working relationship with many key players.” This is in contrast to Tom Daschle, Obama’s first nominee.

DeParle, 52, is a former Tennessee state health commissioner. During the Clinton presidency she worked in the Office of Management and Budget and then for three years as head of the Health Care Financing Administration (since renamed the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services), overseeing the Medicare and Medicaid programs. The New York Times (“Obama Taps Health Aide With Links to Industry,” Mar. 2) described DeParle as “someone with deep roots in the Washington bureaucracy, an intimate familiarity with health policy and respect on both sides of the political aisle — not to mention degrees from Harvard Law School and Oxford University.”

Sebelius’ and DeParle’s skill and experience will immediately be put to the test as they tackle one of the most daunting challenges of the new presidential administration. “Together,” said The Washington Post (Mar. 2), they “will be charged with helping to craft and sell the administration’s ambitious effort to revamp the nation’s health care system to both extend access and rein in runaway costs.”

The particular difficulties of timing, as both women prepare to assume their new positions in the midst of a deepening financial and economic crisis, were stressed by the AP in words that also highlighted the significance of these developments for older Americans and people with disabilities:

If confirmed, Sebelius will assume her new role as the recession has taken its toll on Medicare, which provides health care for older people and the disabled. Plunging tax revenues have weakened the program’s giant hospital fund, accelerating its projected insolvency to as early as 2016. That is only about five years after the first baby boomers will start signing up for services.

There is no doubt that health care reform tops the Obama administration’s domestic agenda. On March 5, the President convened a summit of more than 120 health care experts at the White House to discuss health care reform (“Obama welcomes allies, skeptics to health summit,” AP, March 5). Calling health care costs the greatest threat to the US economy, Obama made it clear that the time for change is now:

“In this effort, every voice has to be heard. Every idea must be considered. . . . There should be no sacred cows. . . . The status quo is the one option that is not on the table.”

Commenting on the administration’s plans for reform, PHI National Policy Director Steve Edelstein said, “PHI will be working with other eldercare and disability advocates to ensure that national healthcare reform addresses long-term services and supports. That will require a workforce policy that increases the quality of direct-care jobs, through improvements in wages, benefits and training, in order to ensure the availability of those services.”