HR3590 Health Care Bill & Government Health Insurance

A feature on KansasCity.com, which talks about the integral role that Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius plays in the implementation of the new health care reform law, starts out with an interesting piece of trivia.

In 1965, 307 House votes led to the creation of the Medicare and Medicaid programs. Among these votes was one cast by then Rep. John J. Gilligan from Ohio. Forty-five years since Gilligan cast his vote for Medicare, his daughter, Kathleen Sebelius, is at the helm of yet another pivotal time in health care in America.

Kathleen Sebelius was born Kathleen Gilligan on May 15, 1948 in Cincinnati, Ohio. She was raised as a Roman Catholic and attended the Summit Country Day School in Cincinnati. She went on to earn a bachelor of arts degree in political science from the Trinity Washington University in Washington D.C., and a master of public administration degree from the University of Kansas.

Having moved to Kansas in 1974, Sebelius served as a representative in the Kansas Legislature for eight years, and then as Insurance Commissioner for another eight years, before being elected as governor. Her election to the governorship of Kansas made her and her father as the first father/daughter governor pair, her father John having served as the governor of Ohio from 1971 to 1975.

She was officially announced as the nominee of President Barack Obama for HHS Secretary on March 2, 2009, and her nomination was confirmed by the Senate on April 28.

She is married to federal magistrate judge K. Gary Sebelius, with whom she has two sons.