It's Official

Obama Nominates Sebelius

Kansas governor will inherit HHS woes.

President Obama officially tapped Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius to head the Department of Health and Human Services today, a Washington outsider who will lead the charge to reform the nation's health care system. Sebelius will be working with Nancy-Ann DeParle, a Clinton White House staffer to head up the new White House Office of Health Reform. For years, Sebelius worked against Republican opposition to expand health coverage of the uninsured in Kansas, to arguable degrees of success. In addition to overseeing the strained Medicare and Medicaid programs and a number of other agencies, Sebelius will inherit the tarnished Food and Drug Administration, which has seen recent controversy over food-borne illness outbreaks and its drug approval process. She is Obama's second choice after Tom Daschle's nomination went down in flames about back taxes.