Bobby entered public service in 1996 when he was appointed secretary of the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals (DHH), relinquishing admissions to Harvard and Yale University medical and law schools.

With more than 12,000 employees, a $4 billion budget and hundreds of facilities, DHH is Louisiana’s largest department. Bobby was successful in turning DHH’s $400 million budget deficit he inherited into a surplus of $220 million.

In 1998, Bobby was appointed executive director of the National Bipartisan Commission on the Future of Medicare, whose recommendations continue to be the driving force behind much of the ongoing debate on how to strengthen and improve Medicare.

Bobby returned to Louisiana state government in 1999, when he became president of the University of Louisiana System - the 16th largest higher education system in the country which oversees the education of around 80,000 students a year.

In March 2001, Bobby was nominated by President George W. Bush, and later unanimously confirmed by a bipartisan vote of the U.S. Senate, as the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. In that position, he served as the principal policy advisor to the Secretary of Health and Human Services.