Bush Taps FDA Chief to Head CMS

Washington

President Bush says he will nominate Mark McClellan as administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. If confirmed, McClellan will oversee the rollout of Medicare’s massive overhaul, set in motion by the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act (MMA) of 2003. His brother, White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan, announced the nomination.

Currently commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Mark McClellan has served as a member of the White House Council of Economic Advisers. Previously, he worked at Stanford University as an associate professor and director of the Program on Health Outcomes Research, and was also an attending physician for internal medicine at Stanford Health Services.

Before taking the helm at CMS, McClellan must be confirmed by the Senate Finance Committee, which oversees Medicare and Medicaid. Although some lawmakers had predicted a quick confirmation, Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Byron Drogan, D-N.D., have threatened to stall the process because of McClellan’s opposition to drug reimportation from Canada.

McClellan would succeed former CMS Administrator Tom Scully, who resigned in December shortly after passage of the Medicare reform law to join Alston & Bird’s Washington, D.C., law practice.

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