While natural disasters capture headlines and national attention short-term, the work of recovery and rebuilding is long-term.

While we've made progress with our numbers, this will be a harder-to-reach group, and we have less money to do it.... Many people don't know or understand about the tax credit that they can receive. And so affordability is a barrier. We know that a disproportionate number of those who are still uninsured are young.

No innovation in the past 200 years has done more to save lives and improve health than the sanitation revolution triggered by invention of the toilet. But it did not go far enough. It only reached one-third of the world.

I had to sign the paper to shut down the government. It's terrible.... [But] what the shutdown showed many, many people is the importance of the role of government. And as frustrated [as people get with] Washington, there are so many things [the government does] that are so important to people's lives every day. The panda cam, paying small businesses their loans - these are all things that shut down.

First of all, women inherently, I think, are quite capable of having lots of balls in the air. And so, like, it's all those skills you use; you analyze the problem, figure out your tools, and then go at it piece by piece.... It's like what you have to do in the morning to get your kids out the door [if you're a parent]. The skills are, I believe, the same. The patience issues are the same.

Across the globe, regardless of nationality or financial status, there is a common dream every mother has for her children - for them to live full, healthy and productive lives. As a mother, I share that dream for my children.

I have been fortunate to work in places where people have a passion for their work. At HHS the passion sort of exceeds passion - it's a vocation.... I obviously knew that there were certainly some challenges that I would be taking on both with the work and the politics. [But] I probably did not have the right expectation level with regard to the number and volume of crises that would occur.