SEBELIUS TO HHS, NANCY ANN DEPARLE TO OFFICE OF HEALTH REFORM.

The press release goes out:

Today, President Barack Obama officially nominated Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius as Secretary of Health and Human Services. In this role, Sebelius will oversee a department with wide-ranging responsibilities essential to the American people, including the implementation of the President's vision for health care. As Secretary of Health and Human Services, Sebelius will work with Democrats and Republicans alike to cut costs, expand access, and improve the quality of health care for all Americans.

Nancy-Ann DeParle, one of the nation’s leading experts on health care and regulatory issues, will serve as Counselor to the President and Director of the White House Office for Health Reform. As commissioner of the Department of Human Services in Tennessee, she saw firsthand the health care system’s impact on workers and families. In the Clinton Administration, DeParle handled budget matters for federal health care programs, and took on the tremendous task of managing Medicare and Medicaid.

DeParle has been floated for a couple of weeks now, but since no one seems to have very strong feelings on her, the leaks have attracted little attention. She's served in a variety of positions in the federal health care bureaucracy (topping out as director of the Health Care Financing Administration). Since leaving government, she's held a variety of positions in the private sector, including offering investment advice to JP Morgan and serving on the board of directors for Medco, Cerner, and Boston Scientific. She's been suggested as a good choice for OHR because she combines experience in the federal bureaucracy with an easy knowledge of the business community. In the trivia section, she's married to Jason DeParle, author of American Dream, which is the best book of social policy reporting I've ever read.