@Campus Progress Conference: Kathleen Sebelius

Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services

What America is going to do about climate change and what we’re going to do about our health care system–the two main challenges facing US today.
Our health outcomes are consistently behind so many other countries. If we don’t do something, this new generation will be the first to have a life expectancy less than that of their parents.
We have 12,000 people every year losing their health benefits. We have about 46 million Americans without health coverage at all.
As a parent it was pretty scary to watch my kids, in their twenties, go beyond their college plans and they were in a situation where there was no employer provided health plan. For a lot of folks, they take a chance, and they say they’re going to go without coverage. You are an accident away, or a step away from debt that will follow you for the rest of your life.
The current financial situation we know is unsustainable. Our businesses are less sustainable because they are competing with products that don’t bear the burden of health care coverage.
In the last attempt at health care, doing nothing was seen as less scary than doing something. I don’t hear anybody saying that what we’re doing now is a really good strategy moving forward. It will bankrupt governments, families, business. And we don’t get good results.
The good news is I think Congress is truly engaged. When the President determined that this will be the year for health care, he took a bold risk. What he determined was you can’t fix the economy without fixing health care. It’s about 16% of the overall GDP right now but it’s on the rise.