All Blog Posts from Political Hotsheet

A new set of breast cancer screening recommendations has caused some anxiety for women, leaving them wondering whether or not to schedule regular mammograms or whether the new recommendations will impact their insurance policies.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius issued a statement on Wednesday to address the confusion, saying that the recommendations will not impact government policy and should not impact private insurers' policies, two concerns voiced by Republicans today. She added that mammograms remain an important live-saving tool.

Earlier this week, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force issued new guidelines that recommend against both routine mammograms for women younger than 50 and breast self-exams. The independent panel concluded these screening procedures have been causing too many false alarms and unneeded biopsies without substantially improving women's odds of surviving the disease.

"The U.S. Preventive Task Force is an outside independent panel of doctors and scientists who make recommendations," Sebelius said in her statement. "They do not set federal policy, and they don't determine what services are covered by the federal government."

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This weekend President Barack Obama declared the H1N1 outbreak a national emergency, a move that should help hospitals deal with the surge of patients.

Many people across the country spent their weekend standing in line for hours waiting to get vaccinated against H1N1, and many found that they were too late, turned away when available doses were gone.

As of today, about 16 million doses have been made available. CBS News medical correspondent Dr. Jennifer Ashton says it is doubtful whether the emergency declaration will have any impact on vaccine production.

On Monday Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius acknowledged the frustration of Americans waiting in lines for vaccinations. "I don't want to minimize the anxiety of a lot of parents who want to get their kids vaccinated, but we do have a vaccine that works.

"It works with everybody over ten years old with one dose, and the immune response hits more quickly than we anticipated, so actually as of today, we'll have about 16.5 million doses available throughout the country."

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The government's effort to distribute H1N1 vaccine throughout the U.S. is "a little bumpy" but should improve later this month, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said Wednesday.

Speaking to CBS' "The Early Show", Sebelius said "we won't have as much as everybody wants right away" but the nation would have "good supply" of the specialized flu vaccine in October and urged people to prepare for vaccinations.

A nasal spray version of the vaccine was made available this week, but not to everyone. Those at risk for flu complications – such as pregnant women, children under age 2 and people over 49 – are not eligible for the spray vaccine, Sebelius said.

"It's a fairly limited group," she said.

The injectable vaccines are, however, recommended for five primary groups – pregnant women, caregivers for children under 6 months, health care workers, people age 2 to 24 and older Americans with underlying health conditions.

Sebelius said an injectable vaccine will be available by the end of the week.

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The White House is finally giving Republicans some face time on the issue of health care.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius will meet with the House Republican Study Group on Wednesday afternoon -- that’s the majority of the Republican Conference.

Republicans have been demanding a meeting with President Obama to talk about health care. A couple of weeks ago, they were told the president could not meet with them but that Sebelius could.

This is the first House Republican contact with the administration on health care in months.

Jill Jackson is a CBS News Capitol Hill Producer.

First Lady Michelle Obama made the case Friday morning that health care reform is a women's issue and called on female activists to support President Obama's reform plan.

"Health insurance reform and what it means for our families is very much a women's issue," Obama said, speaking to a group of female advocacy leaders at the White House. "If we want to ensure women have opportunities that they deserve, if we want women to be able to care for their families and pursue things they could never imagine, then we have to reform the system."

Women play a unique and increasingly significant role in families, she said, with eight in 10 mothers reporting they are the ones responsible for choosing their children's doctors. More than 10 percent of women in this country are caring for a sick or elderly relative, she said.

"Being part of the sandwich generation, raising kids while caring for sick or elderly parents, that's just not a work-family balance issue anymore... it is a health care issue," Obama said.

Speaking before the first lady, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said that insurance companies can charge women more than men for the same coverage.

She noted that insurance companies in some states can deny coverage to women who are victims of domestic violence because they are considered to have pre-existing conditions.

"A system that treats women like that is unconscionable," Sebelius said.

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Perhaps there was too much dust in the room, or a bad case of allergies prevented NBC's Chuck Todd from covering his mouth when he sneezed as Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius was speaking during Thursday's White House briefing.

Sebelius gave Todd a mock scolding, pantomiming the correct way to cover up a sneeze. She asked the other reporters in the room, "Who's got some Purell? Give that to Mr. Todd right away."

Sebelius jokingly suggested Elmo, fresh off his public health ad campaign which, among other things, promotes sneezing into ones arms, give Todd a special briefing. "Elmo knows how to sneeze," Sebelius quipped.

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Updated 11:03 a.m. ET

Comments by Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius about the "public option" have garnered a lot of attention, but do they really represent a shift in administration strategy on health care reform?

Yesterday on CNN, Sebelius appeared to back away from the administration's strong push for a government-run health care option when she said that it was "not the essential element" of the health care push.

Instead, Sebelius seemed to indicate that the administration might support nonprofit health insurance co-ops, a proposal which has been discussed in the bipartisan talks by a few members of the Senate Finance Committee.

Sebelius said: "I think there will be a competition to private insurers… That really is the essential part, that you don't turn over the whole new marketplace [after health care legislation is enacted] to private insurance companies and trust them to do the right thing. We need some choices, we need some competition."

Mr. Obama himself seemed to back up Sebelius during his town hall on Saturday in Colorado.

"The public option, whether we have it or we don't have it, is not the entirety of health care reform. This is just one sliver of it. One aspect of it," Mr. Obama said.

The news has riled up liberals who do see the public health insurance plan as the key element to reform. On CBS' "The Early Show" this morning, former Vermont governor and DNC chairman Howard Dean said, "You can't have reform without a public option."

But The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder, who is also CBS News' chief political consultant, reports that it's possible the media just overplayed the comments and the administration's position has not changed like the headlines this morning would indicate.

One unnamed administration official told Ambinder that Sebelius just "misspoke" on CNN. The official said her comments were not meant as a change in policy.

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Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius discussed the essential need for health care reform today in an op-ed column for Yahoo News.

Echoing arguments made by the president and other congressional and administration officials, Sebelius argued that the cost of health care for state and local budgets has risen 30 percent in the past 20 years and represents the "single largest contributor" to the national deficit. The secretary stressed the need to find a system that does not add to U.S. deficit over the next ten years while extending coverage to millions currently uninsured.

The current system, Sebelius explained, leaves 46 million Americans uninsured. Even more are under-insured and skip necessary medical visits because they cannot afford it.

"For decades, Washington has talked about fixing a broken health care system," Sebeluis writes. "And for decades Washington failed to act – allowing the special interests to stall reform while the cracks in the system turned into crevices, then craters."

Sebelius reiterated President Obama's assurance that the overhaul will not affect the coverage of happy, insured Americans.

"Millions of Americans are happy with the coverage they have now, so let's be clear: under any plan the Obama administration will support, if you like your health insurance you can keep your health insurance; if you like your doctor you can keep your doctor," Sebelius writes.

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Health And Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, speaking from today's flu preparedness summit, said on "Washington Unplugged" today that there are currently about 1 million cases of H1N1 flu transmitting throughout the United States.

"This disease has not gone away," she told CBS News' Bob Orr. "In fact, it's spreading from state to state. We've got outbreaks in every state, in about 102 countries around the world."

"What we're watching very closely, though, is what happens next," Sebelius continued. "So far it hasn't been terrifically lethal…but we need to get prepared for what may happen later this fall."

Sebelius said there remained uncertainty as to the future, and that "we need to be prepared for the worst case scenario."

"We don't know what will happen with this brand new flu strain when it mixes with seasonal flu," she told Orr. Sebelius said a new vaccine to immunize people against H1N1, also known as swine flu, is being prepared, in addition to the standard seasonal flu vaccine, and that she hopes it will be ready later this year.

"We need to make sure it's safe, so the scientists will begin clinical tests this summer, testing to make sure we know the right dosage and we know it doesn't have adverse side effects," Sebelius said. "Assuming that all goes well…we're likely to launch a major vaccination program this fall, having flu vaccine available by mid-October."

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The health care system in the United States may seem sickly, but Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius viewed Monday's meeting of industry leaders and politicians as a strong dose of good medicine.

It was a "breakthrough moment," Sebelius told CBS' The Early Show, noting that in the 1990s, most of these people would not have dared discuss health care reform.

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