Those who have wondered how Secretary of Health & Human Services Kathleen Sebelius could have been unaware of the manifold problems with the Affordable Care Act website before its disastrous rollout now have an answer. Sort of. Seems she was busy, as Jonathan Easley and Kevin Bogardus of The Hill report, meeting with selected media vehicles, to include:
… Cosmopolitan Magazine, Glamour Magazine, Women’s Health, Time, Family Circle,Univision, and a panel at CNN over that time, according to her schedules. She also had interviews scheduled with NPR’s Fresh Air and met with the Chicago Tribune’s editorial board.
There was a strategy behind all this schmoozing with the media, explained an HHS spokesperson:
“As has been widely reported, in the months leading up to open enrollment, Secretary Sebelius met with a broad range of individuals and stakeholders to help get the word out about enrollment, and to spotlight our education and outreach efforts,”
The secretary was especially attentive to Tom Friedman & Ezra Klein, both of whom neglected, evidently, to ask her about the website and if it would actually, you know … work.
But, then, she was too busy to know the answer.