The U.S. Government Accountability Office announced the appointment of two new members and the reappointment of five existing members to the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC). The new members are Dr. Robert A. Berenson, senior fellow at the Urban Institute, and Herb B. Kuhn, an independent health care consultant specializing in Medicare and Medicaid issues. Dr. Berenson is appointed to a term that runs through 2012, and Kuhn will complete the remaining year of the MedPAC seat vacated by Jack Ebeler in March.
The Department of Health and Human Services also announced the appointment of three members to the Health Information Technology (HIT) Policy Committee as well as members of the HIT Standards Committee. The HIT Policy Committee, which was established by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, will make recommendations to the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology on policies to develop and adopt a nationwide interoperable health information infrastructure. The appointees to the Policy Committee are Dr. David Blumenthal, HHS’ National Coordinator for Health Information Technology; Dr. Michael J. Kalg, Dean of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and Deven C. McGraw, director of the Health Privacy Project for the Center for Democracy & Technology.
