Policy Advisory Committee

The Policy Advisory Committee advises the Medicare Rights Center on strategy and priorities for its policy agenda. The PAC consists of leading progressive health policy experts with extensive experience in academia, Congress and Medicare administration. The PAC meets quarterly to discuss and advise on key policy initiatives, provide perspective on the political context for these initiatives and identify policy options and strategic openings to achieve the Medicare Rights Center's policy goals.

Marilyn Moon
Henry Claypool
Chris DeYoung
De Ann Friedholm
Stuart Guterman
Michael Hash
Jack Hoadley
Laura Summer
Nora Super
Bill Vaughan
Bruce Vladeck

Marilyn Moon, Ph.D. is vice president and director of the Health Program at the American Institutes for Research. A nationally known expert on Medicare, she has also served as a senior fellow at the Urban Institute and as a public trustee for the Social Security and Medicare trust funds. Dr. Moon has written extensively on health policy, both for the elderly and the population in general, and on social insurance issues. Her most recent book, Medicare: A Policy Primer, was published in 2006. From 1993 to 2000, Dr. Moon also wrote a column for the Washington Post on health reform and health coverage issues. She is currently the chair of the Maryland Health Care Commission, and is on the board of the National Academy of Social Insurance. Dr. Moon earned a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Previously, she was an associate professor of economics at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, a senior analyst at the Congressional Budget Office, and the founding director of the Public Policy Institute of the American Association of Retired Persons.

Brian Biles, M.D., M.P.H., is a professor in the Department of Health Policy in the School of Public Health and Health Services at the George Washington University. He served for five years as the senior vice president of the Commonwealth Fund and for seven years as staff director of the Subcommittee on Health of the House Ways and Means Committee. Dr. Biles received his doctor of medicine from the University of Kansas and his master of public health degree from Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Henry Claypool is the former senior advisor for disability policy to the administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services in the Department of Health and Human Services. While at HHS Claypool played a key role in marshalling implementation efforts in response to the Olmstead decision. He also was instrumental in developing policies that expanded Medicare's coverage of certain assistive technologies. Mr. Claypool became disabled when he was a student at the University of Colorado, and was a Medicare beneficiary from 1984 to 1995.

Chris DeYoung is the Acting Director of the Health Insurance Counseling Project, part of the George Washington University Law School�s Community Legal Clinics. From 2003 to 2005, he worked with the Medicare Rights Center on both policy and education issues. Since that time, Chris has been actively engaged in improving access to affordable health care services for people with Medicare in the District of Columbia�focusing on expanding eligibility for the Medicare Savings Programs and simplifying enrollment for eligible residents. Chris has an M.A. in Applied Anthropology, and worked in the field of human rights and conflict resolution prior to focusing on domestic health care issues.

De Ann Friedholm is director of the Consumers Union's health care reform campaign team. She leads the campaign team, which is comprised of policy, advocacy and lobbyist staff from Consumers Union offices in New York, Washington, D.C., California and Texas.

She has more than 29 years of experience in health and human services policy, advocacy and administration at the state, federal, local and international levels of government and in the nonprofit sector. Ms. Friedholm spent her early career in Washington D.C., working on health and human services policy and legislation before returning to her native Texas to serve in several high-level government positions, including as Texas Medicaid director. Governor Ann Richards appointed her as her representative on the Clinton Health Reform Task Force and as commissioner of Health and Human Services. She set up and ran the Children's Defense Fund of Texas and led a coalition of 50 organizations to support the creation of the CHIP program and Medicaid improvements. Ms. Friedholm served for three years as the United States resident budget advisor to the South African National Treasury, focusing on reform of the national/provincial social grant system, and served as a principal with Health Management Associates upon her return to Texas.

Stuart Guterman is assistant vice president and director of the Commonwealth Fund's Program on Medicare's Future, based at AcademyHealth in Washington, D.C. He is responsible for the Fund's research agenda on Medicare issues and Medicare's role in achieving a high performance health system, and analyses related to the current performance and future improvements in the Medicare program and the health system overall.

Mr. Guterman was director of the Office of Research, Development, and Information at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services from 2002 to 2005. Prior to that, he was a senior analyst at the Congressional Budget Office, a principal research associate in the health policy center at the Urban Institute, and deputy director of the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (and its predecessor, the Prospective Payment Assessment Commission) from 1988 through 1999. Previously, Mr. Guterman was chief of institutional studies in the Health Care Financing Administration's Office of Research, where he directed the evaluation of the Medicare Prospective Payment System for inpatient hospital services and other intramural and extramural research on hospital payment.

Mr. Guterman received an A.B. in Economics from Rutgers University and an M.A. in Economics from Brown University, and did additional graduate work at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

Michael Hash is a principal at Health Policy Alternatives, Inc., a Washington-based health consulting firm specializing in health policy and financing issues for a wide array of provider, consumer, foundation, and corporate clients. From March 1998 through December 2000, Mr. Hash served as the deputy administrator and acting administrator of the Health Care Financing Administration (now the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services), which administers Medicare, Medicaid and the State Child Health Insurance Program. Prior to his federal appointment, Mr. Hash was a principal at Health Policy Alternatives for thirteen years. He also served from 1990 to 1995 as the senior staff associate of the Subcommittee on Health and the Environment of the House Energy and Commerce Committee with responsibilities for Medicare legislation and health care reform proposals. From 1973 to 1980, Mr. Hash was employed by the American Hospital Association, with progressive responsibilities that led to his appointment as deputy director of the Washington office, overseeing the management of the Association's government relations programs. Mr. Hash is a graduate of Washington and Lee University, with post-graduate studies in political science at Vanderbilt University. He has held teaching positions at the Johns Hopkins University and Georgetown University, and is chair of the board at Providence Hospital in Washington, D.C.

Jack Hoadley, Ph.D., is a health policy analyst and researcher with about 25 years' experience in this field. He joined Georgetown University's Health Policy Institute as a research professor in January 2002, and is conducting research projects on health financing topics, including Medicare and Medicaid, with a particular focus on prescription drug issues. Recent projects have included studies of the use of formularies by Medicare drug plans, the impact of the Medicare drug benefit's coverage gap, options for simplifying and standardizing Medicare's drug benefit and its managed care program, the use of evidence-based medicine to manage pharmacy costs for Medicaid, and an evaluation of recent changes to Florida's Medicaid program. He is trained as a Ph.D. in political science and has worked in both academic and government settings. Prior to arriving at Georgetown, he held positions at the Department of Health and Human Services in the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE), the Physician Payment Review Commission (PPRC) and its successor, the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC), and the National Health Policy Forum.

Laura Summer is a Senior Research Scholar at Georgetown University�s Health Policy Institute. She has over 20 years of experience in federal and state government, independent policy organizations and academic institutions. She directs research that examines how states design, administer and operate publicly financed health and long-term care programs. A particular focus of her research is on methods to increase enrollment in public benefit programs. She has written extensively about access to health insurance and health and long-term care for populations of all ages, as well as about the operation of the Medicaid and Medicare programs. Ms. Summer has been a member of the Georgetown faculty for eight years and served as the Deputy Director for the Institute�s Center on an Aging Society. She holds a Master of Public Health degree from the University of Michigan.

Nora Super is Kaiser Permanente's director of public policy and government relations for the Permanente Federation. In this role, she represents the political and health policy interests of the eight regional Permanente Medical Groups, which comprise the physician component of Kaiser Permanente, before Congress and the Bush Administration. The Permanente Medical Groups employ nearly 14,000 physicians who care for approximately 8.7 million Kaiser Permanente members. She also serves as the Federation's key liaison with Washington-based professional and industry associations.

Ms. Super joined Kaiser Permanente in January 2020 after more than 20 years in Washington, and has a background in a wide range of health policy issues, including Medicare, Medicaid and other federal and state health programs. She most recently served as chief Medicare lobbyist for AARP, an organization that represents over 39 million members. Prior to that position, she held a number of positions in health policy, including senior research associate at George Washington University Medical School, principal research associate for the National Health Policy Forum, manager of public policy for the Washington Business Group on Health, and senior public affairs associate for the Employee Benefit Research Institute. She has also worked in government at the local, state and congressional levels. She is a prolific writer and a frequent speaker at conferences.

A native of New Orleans, Ms. Super studied political science at Tulane University and did her master's work in public administration, with a concentration in health policy, at George Washington University.

Bill Vaughan is the Senior Policy Analyst for health issues at Consumers Union, the independent non-profit publisher of Consumer Reports. He previously served as Director of Government Affairs at Families USA, and has also held various staff positions in the U.S. House of Representatives, including the Committee on Ways and Means. His past areas of concentration include Medicare, managed care, national health care, COBRA health continuation and health insurance reform issues, as well as FDA reform, Medicaid budget issues, Japanese trade issues, industrial trade problems and policy (especially steel and auto), agricultural trade, and small tariff bills. He has also worked on tax reform, environmental taxes, IRS administration and national park legislation.

Bruce C. Vladeck, Ph.D., is Senior Advisor to Nexera Inc., a wholly owned consulting subsidiary of the Greater New York Hospital Association. From 1993 through 1997, Dr. Vladeck was administrator of the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA, now the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services), and his work there was recognized in 1995 by a National Public Service Award. Subsequent to his service at HCFA, Dr. Vladeck was appointed by President Clinton to the National Bipartisan Commission on the Future of Medicare.

After leaving HCFA, Dr. Vladeck was professor of health policy and geriatrics at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, where he also served as senior vice president for policy of the Medical Center. In 2004, Dr. Vladeck joined Ernst & Young�s Health Sciences Advisory Services, but left that position for sixteen months in 2006�2007 to serve, at the request of Governor Jon Corzine, as interim president of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey.

A graduate of Harvard College and the University of Michigan, Dr. Vladeck has held full-time faculty positions at Columbia University and Mount Sinai, and has served as adjunct faculty at Rutgers, Princeton, NYU, and the Aquinas Institute of Theology. He is a member of the Institute of Medicine and the New York Academy of Medicine, and serves on the board of the March of Dimes, and on the New York City Board of Health.