YouSaid · the spoken record
Kathleen Sebelius
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- 2017-11-22
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- 2017-11-22
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2017-11-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 193 - Kathleen Sebelius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It was great to be here, and one of the joys when I got elected governor was having my father there, and much to his surprise, I wore the dress that had been made for my mother for his inauguration. That was a surprise, and it was kind of a wonderful full circle.”
2017-11-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 193 - Kathleen Sebelius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We in Kansas passed a law that said if you're a drug user, you go into a program, your sentence stays behind you, so if you screw up in the program, you can go in. We had fewer prisoners when I left the governor's office than when I came in. We actually shut down a couple of wards in areas because it is A chronic health disease, not a criminal issue”
2017-11-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 193 - Kathleen Sebelius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Treatment and it's a mental, I mean, it's a chronic issue. And we have a third of our jail beds right now, a third of our prison beds are filled with drug users. Not sellers, not people who have committed drug users. And that is not only incredibly ineffective, it's incredibly expensive and stupid.”
2017-11-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 193 - Kathleen Sebelius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, it's a huge step forward. It brings things into the mainstream. I think what is really Alarming is those two laws are not fully implemented yet. It is not fully integrated. It is the law, but we don't have enough providers. We don't still have full parity. But we were on the pathway there. This administration, again, wants to take a huge step back. We have an attorney general who now talks about the opioid crisis and talks about it as a criminal justice issue, not a major health crisis. The president has said it's a major health crisis, but he supports legislation which would take people's coverage away to deal with that health crisis. You have people once again suggesting that we could do carve-out programs and give states a pot of money and they could deal with it as opposed to saying every insurance policy, every program, every operation should cover this.”
2017-11-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 193 - Kathleen Sebelius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I did I had some family members who had depression. I have had family members who suffered from alcoholism. I've had situations where people needed treatment and it was always a sidebar program. I worked on mental health issues as a legislature. This has been, I think, a compelling. My father put together a whole mental health system in the state of Ohio. So as a child, I saw the horrors of having hospitals where people were literally chained and locked. And I mean, and that wasn't terribly long ago. We've moved some distance, but in the Bush era, the passage of the Paul Wellstone mental health parity legislation, bipartisan signed by a Republican president, And then the Affordable Care Act, which said an essential health benefit has to be mental health and substance use disorder treatments.”
2017-11-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 193 - Kathleen Sebelius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I first of all have felt for a very long time that mental health should be treated like physical health ailments. Is this something you have?”
2017-11-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 193 - Kathleen Sebelius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And it doesn't work the second time we're toast. And maybe this law will never, I mean, we have to get this running to make sure the law actually fulfills its promise. The only silver lining, and some of that was that nobody was going to get benefits until January 1st. So the December date ensured and it actually did work that we had a million people by the 1st of January who then had coverage. So we weren't actually blocking people from coverage they could have had day one because it wasn't going to go into effect. But it was horrible and miserable.”
2017-11-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 193 - Kathleen Sebelius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Kind of lost in the shuffle of the tech disaster. And we think the scariest thing for me is it, first of all, was something that I could not personally fix. I can't write code. I could not say to everybody, get out of the way. I can just do this. And I had to rely on many of the same people who had told me everything was going to be fun. That was pretty terrifying. Luckily, we had a lot of news support come in, but the people who wrote the code had to actually fix the code. That was step one. And secondly, I thought if we put this date down, which I did when I went to congressional hearings and got my ears boxed on a regular basis,”
2017-11-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 193 - Kathleen Sebelius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think there were people desperate for coverage who were frantic that maybe this wouldn't happen. If you recall on October 1st, the adversaries felt so strongly that this law should never be allowed to start that they shut government down. The government was shut down for 13 days.”
2017-11-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 193 - Kathleen Sebelius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, it was, I think, probably the most miserable eight weeks of my life. It seemed like eight years. But from the 1st of October until the 1st of December, when we said we will have it fixed was a very, very long, painful process. First of all, I had let down the president, who I gave up my governor's job to come and work with. And I knew this reason motivated by this healthcare, absolutely the opportunity to do this.”
2017-11-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 193 - Kathleen Sebelius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Absolutely. And it's also the largest amount of money from the federal government to the states of any program in existence.”
2017-11-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 193 - Kathleen Sebelius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think it will if they cannot muster the votes to pass an actual repeal legislation. I think vestiges of this will absolutely survive. And frankly, the target, as far as I'm concerned, which is Paul Ryan has made fairly clear speaker Paul Ryan, is not really anything to do with the Affordable Care Act. It is the underlying Medicaid program, which now ensures about 72 million people, the largest insurance program in the country, the program that supports most of the vulnerable populations in this country.”
2017-11-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 193 - Kathleen Sebelius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I'm pretty pragmatic about first you have to stop the bleeding, and I think it's very important that the Democrats take one of the chambers in the 2018 election. It's more likely to be the House given current polling if that occurs, at least they can Stop legislation from being passed to do further damage. The law will not be repealed. The law will not. But until the end of this current administration, you will still have lots of administrative tools within the Office of Health and Human Services to undermine, undercut, put out bad advocates. You believe it”
2017-11-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 193 - Kathleen Sebelius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Canceling the subsidies and telling them that the program is dead. It's gone. It's been blown up. It doesn't work. And I think that does have an impact. A lot of people think the law has been repealed.”
2017-11-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 193 - Kathleen Sebelius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“December 15 And, you know, in spite of the fact that premiums are up and that has been widely advertised, most people who are in the marketplace have subsidies that also are elastic. So with the rise in premiums, people subsidies actually cover most of the cost. And in fact, it's estimated that about 60% of the people looking for coverage can find an insurance policy, comprehensive insurance, with a zero dollar premium.”
2017-11-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 193 - Kathleen Sebelius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And we'll see how that ends up. I mean, the end of an open enrollment is 2015, but it's clear that people still desperately want a need insurance coverage in spite of the fact that the premiums are up.”
2017-11-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 193 - Kathleen Sebelius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Cutting it in half. And then the president, you and I both know that the president's voice had a huge impact on sign-ups in previous years when it was Barack Obama. You could actually watch him give a talk, go on Facebook, put an add in, and watch the enrollment numbers rise with him. Donald Trump, on the other hand, has done everything he could to convince people that the law is gone. And yet it's blown up.”
2017-11-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 193 - Kathleen Sebelius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Not only reached as readily, but they made sure that they didn't know a deadline was coming and that they didn't warn them to hurry up and sign up. And young, healthy people really need to be hit by a 2x4 to say, come on, time is there. So that was step one. Step two is that the administration then systematically put out information that I would say was just blatantly false about the program using tax dollars and putting videos together. Then they went after the contracts for 2018 enrollment, which were in right this moment, canceling the advertising that would tell people enrollment was underway, canceling the groups who were hired to help people on the ground actually walk through the process”
2017-11-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 193 - Kathleen Sebelius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It had people feel about a million folks who would have likely been insured given the trend rates of the previous three years. So the people who were very”
2017-11-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 193 - Kathleen Sebelius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, actually, the White House started at inaugural day because open enrollment of 2017 lasted 11 days into the new administration. And step one really was to pull down all the advertising for the end of 2017.”
2017-11-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 193 - Kathleen Sebelius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think that's right, although every economist who I have read and talked to about the end of 2016, if you look at that year, felt that rate adjustments were going to be one time, that the markets were actually stabilizing. Finally, companies had a three-year trend rate. They knew who was coming in. They knew what to do to go after people who weren't coming in. And they were really projecting a very optimistic stable market.”
2017-11-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 193 - Kathleen Sebelius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, the irony is Democrats have now become Republicans in some of this debate, in that What really works in the insurance market is competition. I believe in markets and markets need competition. That used to be the Republican mantra. It has become the Democratic mantra. And having regulated an insurance market, you can actually regulate a market with competition. You can't if it's a monopoly market. They can charge whatever they want. So driving companies out, which the Republicans have systematically tried to do and are still doing in this administration, raises rates. It is the surest way to make sure people pay maximum dollars. They are systematically undercutting, again, another fundamental principle of insurance, which is that you need some balance. You need some people who are sick and some people who are healthy and they need to actually pay in because nobody can choose and pick when they get”
2017-11-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 193 - Kathleen Sebelius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Blue States that health care really is a right, and everyone should have access to it. They may have different feelings about how to get there. But those fundamental building blocks are part of the legacy that I don't think will ever go away.”
2017-11-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 193 - Kathleen Sebelius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That as significant as my father's brief tenure in Congress was when Medicare and Medicaid were passed in 1965 and he sat on the Drafting committees and help to put those laws into effect. The passage of the Affordable Care Act is another huge chapter in this path toward universal health coverage, which I think is more torturous in America than any country on earth. We made another giant step. I think the conversation in some ways has changed forever. And the notion that people actually in 2017 are talking about things like it is unacceptable for insurance companies to ever lock somebody out of a policy because of a pre-existing health condition. That was not part of anybody's conversation in 2008. It wasn't a fact known by most people or cared about. I think that there is much more support throughout the country. Republicans and Democrats red stays.”
2017-11-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 193 - Kathleen Sebelius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The poor, there are about seven times as many nuns as priests. And anywhere I would go in the state every time the Archbishop would sort of call me out out loud, I would get 15 calls from nuns around the state of Kansas saying, you hang in there, girl, you're doing just the right thing. Do not bat an eye. We pay no attention to him, neither should you. They were pretty ferocious.”
2017-11-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 193 - Kathleen Sebelius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Significance, they all are delay and time and process. You put that woman in a very jeopardized situation. And that's really what a lot of these laws were about. I felt. The interesting thing, David, was while the bishops and some of the priests are very active and vocal in this issue. The nuns are a thousand percent on the other side. And as far as I'm concerned, in the Catholic Church, the nuns do the work. They run the hospitals, they teach the schools, they minister.”
2017-11-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 193 - Kathleen Sebelius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But there were very few of those, and they were for health reasons. And I just, I mean, I feel very strongly that, again, it's become a debate that has less to do with health and welfare of children and families and much more to do about a political wedge issue and again making it very difficult, mostly for poor women or women who can't take time off work or women. I mean, women with means will find ways that they can balance their families and plan their own families and take care of health situations and do things. Women without means, if you close a clinic that is near their house or work, if you put a 24-hour waiting period and make them take three days off work, if you require three visits instead of one, none of which have any medical”
2017-11-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 193 - Kathleen Sebelius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Was and we had what was the so-called operation of mercy summer where a number of the most vocal right to life groups came and spent the entire summer in Wichita protesting Dr. Tiller but also rallying people around this cause and I you know I tried to follow the recommendations of doctors in large part who felt that the safety and health of women was paramount and some of the standards being proposed some of the operations being done”
2017-11-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 193 - Kathleen Sebelius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Group of constituents who don't share those religious views. I believe there is a separation between church and state that church doctrine should be taught in the churches, not in the polls and in the so we had this intrinsic tension and I think the Catholic Church is somewhat split on this about whether or not a Catholic who is elected to office has a duty to impose that religious teaching which somewhat sounds like Sharia law on those who don't believe it or do you actually operate as a church member yourself and then look at the laws of the land”
2017-11-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 193 - Kathleen Sebelius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I mean, the whole thing is still. A bit baffling to me, having been raised and educated in Catholic schools during my entire educational process, I am a cultural Catholic. I'm a cradle Catholic. And I have lived my life as a Catholic. I believe in the church teachings. I have baptized my children. We are married in the church. What I don't believe in, and I think John Kennedy said it best when he spoke to the Baptist ministers, is that I would impose my religious views on a whole”
2017-11-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 193 - Kathleen Sebelius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, it may not be exactly what you want, but you definitely can move the ball down the road. I inherited a school finance challenge that had been floating around Kansas for nine years. And actually the litigants had lay dormant during the Republican governor's tenure because they figured that with the Republican governor who wasn't eager to put a lot more money in schools and with the Republican legislature bringing it back to a court decision wouldn't help. But we dealt with that. And in the year and a half of lots of struggles and back and forth through the court, we had a major new school finance plan that was passed that equalized funding throughout Kansas and made a huge step forward.”
2017-11-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 193 - Kathleen Sebelius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, the difference between state legislatures and Congress is that states operate with a different set of rules. You have to pass a budget. There is no deficit spending. The legislature ends at a specific date, begins at a specific date, and you actually have to get something done. So at the end of the day, even if you're working with a majority from the other party, there often is some kind of pathway to move forward. And I was really shocked when I got to the national scene to realize that for most members of Congress, if they never did anything, that was fun. They really didn't care not having a budget, no big deal. Not having any legislation pass fine. That attitude is impossible at the state level.”
2017-11-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 193 - Kathleen Sebelius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“What happened nationally is The next seven blue cross blue shield plans, which were looked at for acquisition, blocked blocked the takeover and stayed state based plans, which I think was also good for those states.”
2017-11-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 193 - Kathleen Sebelius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Make a lot of money on the deal. So ultimately, the shareholders approved it, the company board of directors approved it. I was the last step in the process and supposed to just check the box and say everything's fine.”
2017-11-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 193 - Kathleen Sebelius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“the board all were Kansas, and the providers knew the relationship and that we'd suddenly become part of this national conglomerate that wouldn't be good. But the company made, I think, a fundamental mistake, which is that they argued that Kansas Blue Cross coming into this big family would have economies of scale, would be able to lower administrative costs and deliver better services, and it would be happy days for everybody. The reason they made a fundamental mistake is the math didn't work. The administrative overhead of the big conglomerate company was running at about 10%. Kansas Blue Cross was running at about 5% overhead. And you couldn't make that argument that somehow we would be financially better. And they promised their shareholders that”
2017-11-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 193 - Kathleen Sebelius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, the Kansas Blue Cross Blue Shield Company had a majority of the marketplace, most Kansas got their insurance through Blue Cross and Blue Shield. And actually it was always known as a well-run company. It had great relationships in the state. At that point, the company, the acquiring company wasn't called Anthem. It was Wellpoint. And they have since renamed themselves as Anthem. And they were acquiring Blue Cross plans across the country. Kansas would have been their ninth state. But in most other instances, the Blue Cross plans were going bankrupt and Anthem well point came in and kind of rescued them and was seen as a rescuer. Our company was solvent and doing very well. And I had this very instinctive reaction that this would not be good. It would sever the relationships that were pretty personal.”
2017-11-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 193 - Kathleen Sebelius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We lost the governor's office. We lost the two sitting Democratic congressmen we had. We lost about 15 seats in the legislature. And I was walking around saying, woohoo, I won. That's an”
2017-11-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 193 - Kathleen Sebelius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But to describe it as it should be a consumer office, not a company office, I should work for you, not for them. Makes him.”
2017-11-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 193 - Kathleen Sebelius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But decided that there might be a consumer. The third thing that made a difference was that the incumbent had a couple of scandals, as did his predecessor, and there was like an opening. So I thought if we could raise some money, we could teach people what the office using my father's old lessons. If people understood what the office could be, I could describe it any way I wanted because I figured if I didn't know what the hell it did, nobody knew what the hell it did.”
2017-11-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 193 - Kathleen Sebelius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Going to run and find out. Correct. Something like that. So the Clinton administration had failed to pass comprehensive health reform. I was a legislator. I was on the health committee. I'd worked on health issues. I really thought something in the insurance commissioner's office has to have something to do with health. You know, people have health insurance, right? It has to have a connection. And I also felt there was a possibility you could make a real consumer case. What I knew about the office Incumbent, who I was going to run against, and all of his predecessors took all of their campaign cash from the companies they regulated. And I thought there's something here that people need to know about. It was legal in Kansas. There was no law against it. I tried as a legislator to pass a law to say you shouldn't be allowed to do that”
2017-11-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 193 - Kathleen Sebelius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It actually was probably the craziest race I've ever done in my life because not only had the office never been held by a Democrat, but nobody knew what was on the office. I mean, I literally had no idea because I'd never known anybody who worked in the office”
2017-11-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 193 - Kathleen Sebelius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I don't think you can do that, and I think that Franken is likely to do some real soul searching in the meantime. But he stepped forward immediately and did it most of the other who have been accused have followed a very different path. And it's a path that looks a lot more like what Bill Clinton did.”
2017-11-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 193 - Kathleen Sebelius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, and I think, Franken has done something different than some of the other males involved. He first of all admitted behavior and apologized, but immediately asked for an ethics investigation on himself. And I think that we'll see. I mean, the Ethics Committee, frankly, has not had a great record. They have settled a lot of cases. Behind closed doors I don't”
2017-11-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 193 - Kathleen Sebelius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Absolutely. I think it's very fair. And the same criticism would be made today. Now, was impeachment the right vehicle? But”
2017-11-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 193 - Kathleen Sebelius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Bet and that shouldn't happen ever again. Not only did people look the other way, but they went after the women who came forward and accused him. And so it doubled down on not only bad behavior, but abusive behavior. And then people attack the victims. And you can watch that same pattern repeat. And it needs to end. It needs to be over.”
2017-11-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 193 - Kathleen Sebelius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I think part of it, I mean, that's a really good. We need some men to absolutely stand up. To their friends in college. I mean, it's the same thing as having racial slurs joked about in a locker room. It's the same thing as, you know, people need to be called out and said, that's not acceptable. We're not going to do that anymore. It's over.”
2017-11-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 193 - Kathleen Sebelius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Minute I could walk away at any minute. There are so many women who can't do that who need to feed their families, who need to be quiet because they are desperate for the work that they have. And that needs to be blown up. And I guess the only thing that gives me some comfort in hearing the stories come forward is maybe now this atmosphere can finally change and some light can be shown on what has been miserable behavior by a small cadre of men, but unfortunately they're men who achieve powerful positions and they can take advantage of a lot of people.”
2017-11-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 193 - Kathleen Sebelius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, as a lobbyist, as a legislator, as a woman before that who worked for the corrections department and was the first woman in the central office, I would say that the atmosphere, what breaks my heart is to know that here we are 40 years later and very much the same atmosphere prevails. And it's about power. It's never been about sex. It's all about power. And men who have power over women use that power in all kinds of ways. And, you know, I had certainly my share of a variety of horrific situations. Bosses, people. I was though protected in that I didn't ever desperately need this job. I could walk at it and”
2017-11-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 193 - Kathleen Sebelius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, it's the mid 80s to the mid 90s. I think there were about 20 women total in the House in the Senate out of 165. When I lobbied, I was the third woman paid to be a lobbyist. They were the League of Women Voters, a woman who was about 155 years old who represented the Truckers Association and me. So it was a very male dominated place. There had been a few more people by the time I got elected to office.”
2017-11-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 193 - Kathleen Sebelius · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source