Kathleen Sebelius Takes Your Questions on Health Care, Abortion and Rep. Joe Wilson

At Politics Daily, we have been inundated with readers' questions about health care reform -- from what's in the president's plans to how your care would be affected, for better or worse, by what's being proposed.

Following President Obama's speech to a joint session of Congress, we asked readers to send us their questions about health care reform to ask Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of Health and Human Services. We received more than 800 of your ideas and took the top questions to the secretary for her response.

The top questions included how illegal immigrants will be treated under health care reform (she says they won't be covered); how Medicare can remain solvent if a new health plan launches; and whether taxes and insurance premiums will go up with so many new health care commitments to be paid for. (For those answers, see the full interview below.)

In response to Rep. Joe Wilson yelling "You lie!" at the president in the House chamber Wednesday night, Sebelius said she was "stunned" by the congressman's outburst. "I just find that behavior by anybody shocking, to shout at the president, but particularly an elected member of Congress to have that kind of disrespect for the institution in which he serves," she said.


On medical malpractice reform, the president said last night that he had asked the secretary to begin to work on some proposals Thursday. Sebelius said that she is putting a team together to look at two ideas. "One will look at arbitration rather than litigation, putting a doctor and patient together to talk about a resolution," which she said could save millions in court costs and years of effort. She said the second proposal is to "look at ways we can encourage higher quality medicine in the first place."

A final hot-button issue for readers was abortion and how Sebelius would enforce limits to federal funds for abortion, after years of advocating forcefully for women to have access to abortions. "I took an oath of office to uphold the law," she said. "I've done that throughout my career and I will continue to do that. Congress makes the law, the president signs the law, and I enforce the law."

Ultimately, the secretary said that nobody will be forced into a government-run health care plan, and that if you're worried that you will be dropped from your employer's health care coverage, she says that's already happening every day. "If anything, health care reform will help stabilize the employer market, not help to undermine it."