She is resigning six months after a disastrous rollout of President Obama’s health law. Sebelius resigns as HHS secretary

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is resigning six months after a disastrous rollout of President Barack Obama’s signature health law, according to administration sources.

On Friday, Obama will nominate Sylvia Mathews Burwell, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, to replace her.


Sebelius, 65, gave no hint of her imminent departure as she testified Thursday before a Senate panel, announcing that enrollment in Obamacare exchanges had surpassed 7.5 million — a figure that easily beat White House expectations. Still, the strong finish didn’t eclipse a start that Sebelius herself called a “debacle” when HealthCare.gov melted down on Oct. 1.

( WATCH: Kathleen Sebelius career highlights)

It took two costly months to repair, and in that time Republicans’ blistering criticism of Obamacare dominated the political narrative about the president’s program. People simply could not sign up.

Sebelius took responsibility for the flawed launch, and once the website was repaired — by a “tech surge” team dominated by White House appointees, not HHS — she traveled nonstop in the past few months to pitch enrollment in cities across the nation.

But she was toxic on Capitol Hill, and several Republicans had called for her to step down.

( PHOTOS: 10 Sebelius quotes about the Obamacare website)

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said in a tweet, “I thank Secretary Sebelius for her service. She had an impossible task: nobody can make Obamacare work.”

A White House official said Sebelius told Obama in March that she planned to resign. She felt that the Affordable Care Act trajectory was back on track, and believed “that once open enrollment ended it would be the right time to transition the Department to new leadership.”

She told The New York Times Thursday that she had known the time would come for a change and that she would not “be here to turn out the lights in 2017.”

( QUIZ: How well do you know Kathleen Sebelius?)

Burwell was unanimously confirmed for the OMB position a year ago, but HHS with Obamacare may be a more politicized position. But Burwell got a bit of an instant boost when Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in a tweet called her “an excellent choice” to lead HHS.

Sebelius wasn’t Obama’s first choice for the job. Originally he had wanted Tom Daschle, the former Senate majority leader who became close to Obama during the 2008 campaign. Once that nomination blew up over a tax problem, Obama turned to Sebelius, a former state insurance commissioner and Kansas governor, who was also the daughter of a former Ohio governor. She became one of Obama’s longest-serving Cabinet members.

Daschle himself said in an email Thursday night that he was surprised she had quit. “She did an outstanding job in a very difficult set of circumstances. I didn’t see this coming.”

( Also on POLITICO: Website fiasco will taint Sebelius' legacy)

Sebelius was sworn in April 2009 and was the top federal health official through the tumultuous negotiation of the Affordable Care Act. She was not always the public face of the legislative push, but once the law was finally passed on a party-line vote she did become the face of its bumpy implementation.

HHS crafted many of the extensive regulations that reshaped the country’s insurance markets and did the ambitious build-out of an online federal portal for insurance plans. That became even more challenging when many GOP governors refused to build their own health insurance exchange, adding to the size and complexity of HealthCare.gov, which ended up serving 36 states. Congress also refused HHS’s request for more money to do the job.

Sebelius’s resignation could allow the Obama administration to try to reset relationships on Capitol Hill as the health law’s exchanges enter their second enrollment period next November.

But her departure instantly triggered another round of GOP critiques of the health law.

“Secretary Sebelius may be gone, but the problems with this law and the impact it’s having on our constituents aren’t,” said Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell. “Obamacare has to go too.”

Carrie Budoff-Brown, Edward-Isaac Dovere, Jennifer Haberkorn and Brett Norman contributed to this report.