Officials and re-election campaigns face health law challenges

May 24 2011

News outlets explore how the health overhaul has factored into the tenure of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and into specific re-election campaigns.

The Washington Post: Sen. Tester Faces Formidable Challenge In Montana Reelection Campaign
The biggest liability for Democrats in Montana, Missouri and Virginia could be their support for Obama's health care law. ... In Montana, Tester has taken heat for his health care vote. He defends it with a personal reason: He and his wife went without insurance for years, including during the birth of a child, because they couldn't afford it. "Is it going to break this country? Far from it," Tester said about the health-care law, raising his voice. "Are there things we need to do to make it better? Absolutely. But there's so much bad information out there and so much paranoia about it that, quite frankly, if I walked into town right now, you probably wouldn't find a lot of people raising the pompoms" (Rucker, 5/20).

The Miami Herald/Kansas City Star: Sebelius Continues To Take Heat Over Health Care Law
A global flu pandemic loomed in 2009 the very day Kathleen Sebelius took command of Washington's massive health care bureaucracy, and she had to quickly marshal a response. A year later, when a BP drilling rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, she had to deal with the medical fallout from the worst oil spill in U.S. history. But throughout her two years as secretary of health and human services, her toughest challenge has been to shoulder the defense — and weather the political blows — of the biggest expansion of America's health care system in half a century (Goldstein, 5/23).