Twelve of the 15 members of the bipartisan Commission on Long-Term Care have been named, but the Commission cannot begin work until President Barack Obama appoints his three choices for the panel.
The commission was created as a substitute for the canceled CLASS Act in the “fiscal cliff” budget deal worked out at the start of the year. The 15-member panel has six months from its formation to develop a plan to establish, implement, and finance a comprehensive set of long-term care services for seniors and people with disabilities, and then recommend legislation. Three Commission members are appointed by the President and three each by the House and Senate majority and minority leaders.
According to Forbes contributor Howard Gleckman, who has been following the Commission’s formation, sources say the delay in the Obama appointments “is mostly bureaucratic—it often takes the White House time to review background checks and run candidates through the usual political traps.”
Gleckman calls the Commission members selected so far “an intriguing mix,” but points out that the group includes no members explicitly representing the views of people with disabilities, family caregivers, or the insurance industry.
Below are the Commission’s current members.
Democratic picks:
Javaid Anwar, a Nevada physician who served as chair of Nevada‘s Committee on Access to Health Care
Laphonza Butler, president of the United Long-Term Care Workers Union
Dr. Bruce Chernof, President of the SCAN Foundation, a charity working to improve health care for seniors
Judy Feder, a professor at the Georgetown Public Policy Institute who was a staff director of the 1989-90 Pepper Commission and a senior health aide in the Clinton administration
Judith Stein, founder and executive director of the Center for Medicare Advocacy. (For ElderLawAnswers' coverage of Stein's appointment, click here.)
George Vradenburg, a philanthropist and founder of USAgainstAlzheimer’s
Republican picks:
Judith Brachman, a former director of the Ohio Department of Aging who chairs the Jewish Federation of North America’s Aging and Family Caregiving Committee
Bruce Greenstein Louisiana’s Secretary of Health and Hospitals
Stephen Guillard, a nursing home executive who has been CEO of HCR ManorCare and was chairman of a trade group that represents large for-profit nursing home companies
Neil Pruitt, chairman and CEO of UHS-Pruitt Corporation, a long-term care provider, and board chair of The American Health Care Association, the largest trade group representing nursing homes and other senior care providers
Grace-Marie Turner, founder and president of the Galen Institute, a research organization that promotes free-market ideas for health reform
Mark Warshawsky, a pension expert who was a Treasury official under President George W. Bush
To read Gleckman’s column, “What Ever Happened to the Long-Term Care Commission?,” click here.
For a New York Times blog post on the Commission, titled "A New Commission: Time to Cheer or Yawn?", click here.
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