Health Czar – Nancy-Ann DeParle

Health Czar – Nancy-Ann DeParle

Title: Counselor to the President and Director of the White House Office of Health Reform

Salary: $158,500

Reports to: President Obama

Appointed: March 2009

Department that might have handled similar issues: Health and Human Services (HHS)

• Coordinates the development of the Administration’s healthcare policy agenda.

• Experience: Managing Director, CCMP Capital (since 2001); Adjunct professor (focusing on healthcare policy), Wharton School of Business (since 2001); Commissioner, Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (since 2001); Fellow, Harvard Institue of Politics (2000 to 2001); Director, Healthcare Financing Administration (1997 to 2000)

• Has law degree from Harvard

• Served as the OMB’s representative on health-care reform during Bill Clinton’s first term

• As head of the HHS Health Care Financing Administration under Clinton, ran the largest health insurance provider in America, overseeing $600 billion in payments annually to 74 million recipients of Medicare and Medicaid

• 2001: left government to take a year-long fellowship at Harvard’s Institute of Politics, where she was part of Harvard’s Health Care Policy Forum and led a weekly study group on reforming Medicare.

• During Bush administration, sat on the boards of many health companies, from medical treatment producers to hospital systems

• In September 2008, donated $2,300 each to Clinton and Barack Obama.

(SOURCE: List of Obama Czars by Glenn Beck
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Former head of Medicare/Medicaid.

Strong Health Care Rationing proponent.

She is married to a reporter for The New York Times.

Nancy-Ann DeParle, President Barack Obama’s health reform czar, knows a thing or two (or four) about the dark underbelly of the medical industry, after serving on the boards of numerous companies accused of illegal activities. Following her resignation as head of the Medicare program in 2000, but before she became Obama’s director of the new White House Office of Health Reform, DeParle joined laboratory, medical technology and pharmaceutical services corporations that ran afoul of state and federal officials over their business practices. Only months after leaving the Medicare program, DeParle joined DaVita, owner and operator of kidney dialysis clinics, which earns the majority of its revenues from Medicare. DaVita purchased Gambro Healthcare, which reached an out of court settlement after being accused of Medicare fraud. DaVita also was investigated by U.S. Attorneys in Texas, Georgia, Missouri and New York for its billing practices.

Guidant Corporation, another company DeParle joined as a director, was accused of covering up safety problems with one of its most successful products, the Ancure Endograpt System, used by surgeons to help repair ailing hearts.

Yet another company DeParle has been associated with, Medco Health Solutions, was the focus of three whistleblower lawsuits, two of which involved allegations of billing irregularities.

Finally, Specialty Laboratories Inc., a California medical testing company, was busted for using unlicensed personnel shortly after DeParle joined its board in 2001. Specialty got into trouble again when California Attorney General Jerry Brown sued it and six other labs in February for allegedly defrauding the state’s Medicaid program.
Companies Deal with Legal Issues (by Fred Schulte, Investigative Reporting Workshop, American University)
Details of DeParle’s Industry Connections (by Mia Steinle, Investigative Reporting Workshop, American University)
Nancy-Ann DeParle Financial Disclosure Form (PDF)

http://www.allgov.com/Appointments_and_Resignations/ViewNews/Obama_Health_Czar_Made_Millions_from_Heavily_Investigated_Corporations_90705