Kathleen Sebelius resigning as health secretary

WASHINGTON -- Kathleen Sebelius, the U.S. health secretary who steered the troubled rollout of President Barack Obama's signature health care law, will resign, according to two people familiar with the decision.

The announcement is expected today, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the decision is still private. The departure plan comes days after the health program reached and exceeded its first-year enrollment goal.

Sylvia Mathews Burwell, 48, director of the Office of Management and Budget, will be nominated to succeed Sebelius, 65, one of the people said. White House officials had no immediate comment on the report.

A former Democratic governor of Kansas, Sebelius was an early backer of Obama's campaign for president. She spent five years running the Health and Human Services Department, presiding over the largest change to government health programs since Medicare and Medicaid began almost 50 years ago.

The secretary "played a key role that enabled the Affordable Care Act to become the law of the land, and she worked tirelessly to implement it successfully," Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA, a Washington-based health advocacy group that supports the law, said in an email. "We owe her an enormous debt of gratitude for her excellent work in improving health care for families across America."

That was despite numerous computer issues that stymied early sign-ups. People who tried to use the U.S.-run website healthcare.gov encountered delays, couldn't log on, or began an application only to see their data vanish in what the Obama administration termed "glitches." Sebelius was accused by Republicans of covering up or not knowing about the difficulties, which lasted from October until December.

Sebelius took the blame. "Hold me accountable," she said of the problems at an October congressional hearing.

The number of people who eventually signed up for coverage may trump the difficulties in getting there. In total, 7.5 million Americans signed up for private health plans through the new online marketplace exchanges, half a million more than the government's most optimistic estimates.

"She spent a lot of time going to states," said Kansas Insurance Commissioner Sandy Praeger, a Republican who has worked with her since 1991. "I think the HHS putting ads out -- that were very good -- the last month or so, resulted in a big surge the last couple of weeks."

The 2010 law is projected to eventually offer insurance to 25 million more people.

Burwell has a background in economics and management. She was deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget in the Clinton administration and chief of staff to the Treasury secretary then.

Before joining the Obama administration last year, Burwell was president of the Wal-Mart Foundation.