First fellow named by interfaculty health policy group

The Interfaculty Health Policy Forum has announced Nancy Ann DeParle will be its first Forum Fellow. She will be in residence during the 2000-01 academic year. DeParle served as the administrator of the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services from 1997 to 2000. HCFA is the nation’s largest health insurance program, providing services to 74 million Americans through Medicare, Medicaid, and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program.

Said Deparle, “This is a tremendous opportunity for me to reflect on my tenure as administrator of the Health Care Financing Administration, and to share the experiences of eight years devoted to working on health policy and budget issues in the Clinton Administration with students and the broader Harvard community. And it’s an enormous benefit to be able to interact with, and learn from, some of the best health policy analysts, thinkers, and practitioners in the country.” In her capacity as Forum Fellow, DeParle will teach and participate in workshops on health care. She will also be a Fellow with the Institute of Politics.

“I am delighted that Nancy Ann DeParle has agreed to launch the Health Policy Forum Fellowship,” said Health Policy Forum coordinator Miles Shore, Bullard Professor of Psychiatry at the Medical School. “She has had long experience as a health policy practitioner at the highest levels of government. That makes her the perfect person to help us define what Forum Fellows should make of their time at Harvard.”

The Interfaculty Health Policy Forum, developed under the aegis of the Interfaculty Initiative on Health Policy, brings together health policy investigators and health care practitioners. The Health Policy Forum was established last year, in part with support from Jack I. Levin ’40 and John P. Levin ’69 through the Jay and Rose Phillips Family Foundation.

The Forum plans to appoint new fellows each year to continue the research and discussion on health care.