The sudden resignation of HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius came as a surprise to many considering that just last week she stated her intention to stay.
On March 31, Sebelius joined HuffPost Live’s Alyona Minkovski to discuss the Affordable Care Act sign-up deadline. When asked if she would still be part of the Obamacare effort in November, Sebelius said she “absolutely” would.When prompted a second time to confirm her intention to remain with the administration, Sebelius declared, “I’m in.”
Now that Sebelius is out, many people have tried to explain the reason for her departure. Last night on Special Report, Charles Krauthammer cut to the chase.
Transcript and video via National Review…
“I think this was a textbook case of how to do it efficiently,” he said on Friday’s Special Report. Dumping Sebelius at the height of the website’s woes would have been a big political hit in the public’s perception of the law; now, she can leave on a high note after reaching the goal of 7 million enrollees, or “whatever the phony number is today,” Krauthammer explained.The resignation is also far away enough from the midterms elections that it will likely not be an issue in November. Even if Republicans manage to slam the White House and Democrats over the health-care law during nominee Sylvia Mathews Burwell’s confirmation hearings — which Krauthammer was doubtful would happen given Republicans’ recent track record in congressional hearing — it’ll only be a “week or two” of negative press.“I think this is sort of how you do it if you’re going to defenestrate a member of your Cabinet,” he said, “from a ground-floor window, so I don’t think she was actually injured in the fall.”
Here’s the video.
Featured image via YouTube.
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