The University of Texas at Austin

Dr. McClellan has a highly distinguished record in public service and in academic research. He is the former administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (2004-2006) and the former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (2002-2004). He also served as a member of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers and senior director for health care policy at the White House (2001–2002). In these positions, he developed and implemented major reforms in health policy.

* The Medicare prescription drug benefit and other innovative coverage options, including the move from indemnity insurance to personalized, prevention-oriented care;
* Innovative approaches to coverage in Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, including roadmaps that states have used to update and expand coverage and the “Money Follows the Person” initiatives in long-term care;
* The development of the FDA’s Critical Path initiative, regulatory reforms to modernize pharmaceutical manufacturing, efficient risk-management methods to better address safety issues, and reforms to speed the approval of low-cost generic medicines and improve the availability of safe and effective treatments; and
* Public-private initiatives to develop better information on the quality and cost of care, and steps to help consumers and providers use this information to improve care, including performance-based provider payment reforms, and Health Savings Accounts and Health Reimbursement Arrangements.

In the Clinton administration, Dr. McClellan was deputy assistant secretary of the Treasury for economic policy from 1998–1999, supervising economic analysis and policy development on a range of domestic policy issues.

Dr. McClellan was also an associate professor of economics and associate professor of medicine (with tenure) at Stanford University, from which he was on leave during his government service. He directed Stanford’s Program on Health Outcomes Research and was also associate editor of the Journal of Health Economics, and co-principal investigator of the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), a longitudinal study of the health and economic status of older Americans. His academic research has been concerned with the effectiveness of medical treatments in improving health, the economic and policy factors influencing medical treatment decisions and health outcomes, the impact of new technologies on public health and medical expenditures, and the relationship between health status and economic well being. He has twice received the Kenneth J. Arrow Award for Outstanding Research in Health Economics.

Dr. McClellan is a Member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, and a Visiting Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

Dr. McClellan was born and raised in Austin and is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin (Plan II). He earned his M.P.A. from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government in 1991, his M.D. from the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology in 1992, and his Ph.D. in economics from MIT in 1993. He completed his residency training in internal medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston.

Dr. McClellan has been board-certified in Internal Medicine and has been a practicing internist during his academic career.

Education

Ph.D., MIT, 1993; M.D., Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, 1992; M.P.A. John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard, 1991.

Current Positions

Senior Fellow, Brooking Institution; Director of the Engelberg Center for Healthcare Reform, Brooking Institution; Leonard D. Schaeffer Chair in Health Policy Studies, Brooking Institution

Previous Positions

Administrator, Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (2004-2006); Commissioner, Food and Drug Administration (2002-2004); Member, President’s Council of Economic Advisers and White House Senior Director for Health Care Policy (2001-2002); Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy (1998-1999).

Author, “Drug Safety Reform and the FDA—Pendulum Swing or Systematic Improvement?” The New England Journal of Medicine, April 2006; Co-author, “The Costs of Decedents in the Medicare program: implications for payments to Medicare + Choice Plans,” with M.B. Buntin, Alan M. Garber, and J.P. Newhouse, Health Services Research, February 2004.

Health Care Policy
Presidential policy making