Secretary Kathleen Sebelius (D) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has announced her resignation. President Barack Obama (D) praised Sebelius in a ceremony this morning, saying that she will “go down in history” for being the HHS secretary during the implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the health care law colloquially known as ObamaCare.
Much of the media coverage about Sebelius’s resignation has focused on the disastrous ObamaCare roll-out, including the well-known failures of the HealthCare.gov enrollment web site. I attempted to use the web site several times to see what enrollment options were available. I am covered by employer insurance, at least until the ObamaCare cancellation notices begin going out some time after the mid-term elections, so I didn’t actually intend to buy new coverage. But the site never allowed me to proceed past an ‘unexpected error’ warning, which continued to appear for me right up until the end of the open enrollment period. I never got to see a list of available coverage options and prices.
Though the roll-out debacle does deserve some attention, Sebelius ought to be remembered for a much bigger, much more troubling debacle. Under her leadership, HHS implemented an insurance coverage mandate that required businesses, organizations, and individuals to pay for drugs and procedures that many find morally objectionable, including contraception, sterilizations, and chemical abortions. The religious exemptions to this mandate are so narrow that, as many other commentators have pointed out, even Jesus Christ himself would not have qualified (because he ministered primarily to non-Christians). By imposing this mandate, Sebelius violated her oath of office, violated the Bill of Rights, and violated some of the most fundamental tenets of her own professed Catholic faith.
