Your New Health Care Czar: Nancy-Ann DeParle
Your New Health Care Czar: Nancy-Ann DeParle
Today, President Obama nominated Gov. Kathleen Sebelius (D-KS) to head the the Department of Health and Human Services and Nancy-Ann DeParle, a health care administrator in the Clinton administration, to head the office of health reform.
Sebelius is a former insurance commissioner and two-term blue governor from a red state with a knack for bipartisanship, but she has little Washington experience. DeParle, however, is an old Washington hand and she’ll be responsible for shepherding Obama’s health care plan through Congress, bringing all of the stakeholders to the table, and finally passing reform.
Some resume highlights:
- In 1987, DeParle, then 30, was appointed Tennessee Commissioner of Human Services, where she oversaw an agency with 6,000 employees that provided cash assistance, food stamps, and child welfare and adult rehabilitation services.
- From 1993 to 1997, DeParle served as Associate Director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, where she oversaw health care policy and budget issues.
- In 1997, President Clinton appointed her as Administrator of the Health Care Financing Administration (now the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services).
She is, as one former colleague described her in a conversation with the Wonk Room, “a practical reformer who believes in making government work. She’s not an ideologue. Rather, she has the ability to hear what the policy and the politics are and move forward in increasing access to health care and improving health quality.” As Jonathan Cohn notes:
This much I can say for sure: Within the health care community, people who either know DeParle personally or are familiar with her work are vouching for integrity–and doing so strongly. Typical was a statement Ron Pollack, president of FamiliesUSA, made to me last week: “She’s an honest person who will serve health care reform well and won’t be swayed by other associations she had in her private-sector business work.
Sebelius and DeParle are pragmatists. Both have worked with Republicans, the insurance industry and business groups to push for reform. DeParle has the Washington experience that Sebelius lacks, but both women are focused on making government work. Those are the qualifications that could get a viable health reform bill on the President’s desk.
7 Responses to “Your New Health Care Czar: Nancy-Ann DeParle”
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Nice spin, for someone who sat on eight for-profit healthcare boards:
http://stateofthedivision.blogspot.com/2009/03/white-house-health-care-reformer-is-peu.html
http://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getcompany&CIK=0001144511&owner=include&count=40
I smell a PEU, private equity underwriter. That’s not my idea of health care reform.
March 2nd, 2009 at 4:51 pmNancy-Ann sat on numerous executive compensation committees since 2001. They love pay for performance, and in one case, carried interest. The same practices that imploded Wall Street are coming to health care and education. Sad days indeed, especially when a “progressive” web site brags about the appointment.
“Too Damned Much Money”
March 2nd, 2009 at 4:54 pmIn 2007 alone, Ms. Deparle made $450,000 in board compensation. That’s on top of her full time job as a PEU.
Recall the abysmal leadership in corporate board rooms across America. That just passed the transom into the White House.
March 2nd, 2009 at 5:01 pmThank goodness the budget must originate in the House, where H.R. 676 has more cosponsors than any other health care reform.
March 2nd, 2009 at 5:45 pmIMO – Five (5) Essentials in reforming the US health-care system (Shared with Gov Sebelius & Ms.DeParle :
1) Get politics (and Congress) out of the new system’s implementation – ala Mr. Daschle’s
suggestion. Until we have universal publicly-funded federal elections Congress will continue to
2) Employ and adequately empower the most capable, fully independent forensic accountancy services available. Until you KNOW EXACTLY why medical costs have risen at MULTIPLES of underlying inflation for nearly a generation, any attempt to manage them is a fool’s errand.
3) Comprehensive outreach to solicit critiques and suggestions from our medical complex’s front-line folks: uninsured, under-insured, and marginally-insured patients, nurses, physician’s assistants, pharmacists, clerks, custodians and secretaries. Provide clear, bullet-proof whistle-blower protection (and meaningful incentives) in the process of identifying historical & existing waste, fraud and abuse.
4) Examine and challenge the rationales for numerous (some rather bizarre) underlying assumptions/policies inherent in our existing health system.**
5) Revoke the corporate charters of financial intermediaries which have failed their original purpose. Health maintenance organizations have long argued that by consolidating and streamlining the provision of health care – with a critical focus on effective prevention – they could provide health care most efficiently. Put quite simply, have they? (for instance, why is digital medical data now a federal
expense?)
** Some existing underlying policies/assumptions:
- Having the government (read: taxpayers) reimburse medical universities for LIMITING enrollment in physician training programs
- That a tort system which either allows egregious claims or protects incompetence actually serves our society or the cause of justice.
- Because of their commitment and the high cost of their education and training, physicians are entitled to a gross ANNUAL income nearly equaling the ENTIRETY of that educational expense.
- Drug companies are entitled to high prices, profits and preferential patent protection – while the government (read: taxpayers) provides much of the underlying basic research for free.
- While most hospitals are cost-plus
, many maintain their non-profit status through a seemingly limitless array of financial legerdemain.
March 2nd, 2009 at 11:06 pmContrast TP’s use of SEC reports on Betsy McCaughey and their ignoring two full pages of stock filings on Nancy-Ann DeParle:
http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2009/02/13/mccaughey-biotech/
See post #1 for sec link on Ms. DeParle.
March 2nd, 2009 at 11:47 pmNancy-Ann was, during the Clinton term, as arrogant as she was ignorant. Bad, BAD, BAAAAAD choice.
March 4th, 2009 at 12:27 am