--- title: Kathleen Sebelius Resigns description: The Department of Health and Human Services Secretary will announce her resignation Friday after five years in the Obama Administration for the former Kansas governor who came under fire for the hobbled implementation of the Affordable Care Act canonical: https://time.com/58555/kathleen-sebelius-resigns/ author: Zeke Miller article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-04-10T22:46:53.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-21T07:15:29.417Z article:section: Politics og:title: Kathleen Sebelius Resigns og:description: The Department of Health and Human Services Secretary will announce her resignation Friday after five years in the Obama Administration for the former Kansas governor who came under fire for the hobbled implementation of the Affordable Care Act og:url: https://time.com/58555/kathleen-sebelius-resigns/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7e698abb69c00aa4/69868a34cd804d8832cca407/kathleen-sebelius-resignation.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3500 og:image:height: 1969 og:image:alt: Health and Human Services Secretary Sebelius takes her seat to testify before a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing about issues and complications with the Affordable Care Act enrollment website, on Capitol Hill og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Kathleen Sebelius Resigns twitter:description: The Department of Health and Human Services Secretary will announce her resignation Friday after five years in the Obama Administration for the former Kansas governor who came under fire for the hobbled implementation of the Affordable Care Act twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7e698abb69c00aa4/69868a34cd804d8832cca407/kathleen-sebelius-resignation.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Sebelius Resigns After Botched Obamacare Rollout > Sponsored content. 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It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, twice a week. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3/newsletters?i=b1486d1b-c127-4fa6-b414-5d7d5c549ff4&cr=time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3-v1) by [Zeke Miller](https://time.com/author/zeke-j-miller/) ## Zeke Miller Apr 10, 2014 10:46 PM UTC  Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius takes her seat to testify before a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing about issues and complications with the Affordable Care Act enrollment website, on Capitol Hill in Washington, October 30, 2013. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius takes her seat to testify before a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing about issues and complications with the Affordable Care Act enrollment website, on Capitol Hill in Washington, October 30, 2013. Jonathan Ernst—Reuters by [Zeke Miller](https://time.com/author/zeke-j-miller/) ## Zeke Miller Apr 10, 2014 10:46 PM UTC Kathleen Sebelius, the embattled Health and Human Services Secretary whose oversight of the [health care reform law’s troubled rollout](http://time.com/691/obamas-race-for-the-cure/) made her a lightning rod for Republican critics, will announce her resignation Friday, officials confirmed. Her resignation, coming just days after the end of the first open-enrollment period for the Affordable Care Act, ends a turbulent five years in the Obama Administration for the former Kansas governor. After her agency oversaw the botched launch of the [HealthCare.gov](http://healthcare.gov/) website last year, she became a frequent target of members of Congress in both parties. Republicans repeatedly called for her to resign over the website issues. Sebelius, 65, submitted her resignation to President Barack Obama this week. Sylvia Mathews Burwell, who took over as the director of the Office of Management and Budget a year ago, will be nominated to replace Sebelius on Friday, an Administration official said. The news comes with the White House taking a victory lap over exceeding Obamacare enrollment targets — something that had seemed impossible after the dysfunctional launch — with Sebelius telling lawmakers this week that more than 7.5 million people will have signed up for private insurance under the law. But the website controversy proved to be a costly political weight for the President and his entire party, causing Democrats’ poll numbers to plummet from highs after last year’s government shutdown and once again making the law the centerpiece of Republicans’ campaign for the midterm elections. Administration officials also still begrudge Sebelius for the rocky start to enrollment, crediting a [SWAT team of outside experts](http://time.com/10228/obamas-trauma-team/) with fixing the website and veterans of Obama’s re-election effort with devising the targeted campaign to encourage the uninsured to get coverage. The White House said last year that Obama would hold off on “Monday-morning quarterbacking” the rollout until after the end of the enrollment period. Last week, when the President celebrated enrollments breaking the 7 million target, he thanked congressional leaders but not Sebelius, who was sitting several feet in front of him in the audience in the White House Rose Garden. House minority leader Nancy Pelosi issued a statement Thursday night defending Sebelius’ record, saying: “From Day One, Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has remained laser-focused on a single purpose: to make health care a right, not a privilege, for all Americans. Her leadership has been forceful, effective and essential.” Others were quick to criticize the beleaguered Health Secretary. In a statement, Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus said replacing Sebelius would not solve the problems with the law — a centerpiece of the GOP’s election-year messaging. “Secretary Sebelius oversaw a disastrous rollout of Obamacare, but anyone can see that there are more problems on the way,” Priebus said in a statement. “The next HHS Secretary will inherit a mess — Americans facing rising costs, families losing their doctors and an economy weighed down by intrusive regulations. No matter who is in charge of HHS, Obamacare will continue to be a disaster and will continue to hurt hardworking Americans. It’s time for President Obama to admit that Democrats’ signature law is a failure and heed Republican calls for patient-centered health care reform.” — _With reporting by Kate Pickert_ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/58555/kathleen-sebelius-resigns/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/58555/kathleen-sebelius-resigns/"},"headline":"Sebelius Resigns After Botched Obamacare Rollout","datePublished":"2014-04-10T22:46:53.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-21T07:15:29.417Z","description":"The Department of Health and Human Services Secretary will announce her resignation Friday after five years in the Obama Administration for the former Kansas governor who came under fire for the hobbled implementation of the Affordable Care Act","url":"https://time.com/58555/kathleen-sebelius-resigns/","keywords":["Health Care","Obamacare","Barack Obama","White House"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7e698abb69c00aa4/69868a34cd804d8832cca407/kathleen-sebelius-resignation.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Zeke Miller","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/zeke-j-miller/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7e698abb69c00aa4/69868a34cd804d8832cca407/kathleen-sebelius-resignation.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Health and Human Services Secretary Sebelius takes her seat to testify before a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing about issues and complications with the Affordable Care Act enrollment website, on Capitol Hill","caption":"Health and Human Services Secretary Sebelius takes her seat to testify before a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing about issues and complications with the Affordable Care Act enrollment website, on Capitol Hill","creditText":"Jonathan Ernst—Reuters","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/health-care/","name":"Health Care"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/58555/kathleen-sebelius-resigns/","name":"Sebelius Resigns After Botched Obamacare Rollout"}}]}] ```