Newswise — WASHINGTON, DC (December 16, 2015)— Sara Rosenbaum, JD, the Harold and Jane Hirsh Professor of Health Law and Policy at Milken Institute School of Public Health (Milken Institute SPH) at the George Washington University, has been appointed as the chair of the Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission (MACPAC).

MACPAC is a non-partisan legislative branch agency that provides policy and data analysis and makes recommendations to Congress, the Secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services, and the states on a wide array of issues affecting Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). The US Comptroller General appoints MACPAC’s 17 commissioners, who come from diverse regions across the United States and bring broad expertise and a wide range of perspectives on Medicaid and CHIP.

MACPAC serves as an independent source of information on Medicaid and CHIP, publishing issue briefs and data reports throughout the year to support policy analysis and program accountability. The Commission’s authorizing statute, 42 USC 1396, guides MACPAC’s analytic activities. The commissioners, under the direction of the chair and vice chair, make recommendations to Congress, the Secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services, and the states on a wide variety of health policy issues.

Rosenbaum has served as a MACPAC commissioner since the agency’s establishment and was appointed today by the US Comptroller General of the United States and the head of the General Accounting Office, succeeding Diane Rowland, ScD, Executive Vice President of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation and Executive Director of the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured, who completed her 6-year term as the panel’s initial chair.

“We are thrilled that Sara Rosenbaum will serve as chair of this important commission at a critical juncture in national health reform,” said Lynn R. Goldman, MD, MPH, the Michael and Lori Milken Dean of the Milken Institute SPH. “Professor Rosenbaum’s extensive expertise in Medicaid, health reform, and children’s health issues will prove invaluable to the deliberations of this commission.”

Rosenbaum is considered one of the nation’s leading experts in Medicaid, which has been a focus of her work throughout her 40-year career. Rosenbaum has emphasized public engagement as a core element of her professional life and has provided broadly bipartisan service to every Presidential Administration and to Congress since 1978.

Rosenbaum also regularly advises state governments on health policy. She is a member of the prestigious Institute of Medicine (IOM), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices and also has served on the boards of numerous national organizations, including AcademyHealth.

In addition to serving on the faculty at Milken Institute SPH’s Department of Health Policy and Management, Rosenbaum also holds a professorship in the GW Law School and is a member of the faculty at the GW School of Medicine & Health Sciences. She is the leading author of Law and the American Health Care System, published by Foundation Press in 2012 and received her law degree from Boston University School of Law.

About Milken Institute School of Public Health at the George Washington University:

Established in July 1997 as the School of Public Health and Health Services, Milken Institute School of Public Health is the only school of public health in the nation’s capital. Today, more than 1,700 students from almost every U.S. state and 39 countries pursue undergraduate, graduate and doctoral-level degrees in public health. The school also offers an online Master of Public Health, MPH@GW, and an online Executive Master of Health Administration, MHA@GW, which allow students to pursue their degree from anywhere in the world.