Gail Wilensky

Economist Dr. Gail Wilensky is a Senior Fellow at the international health foundation Project HOPE. She has served in the White House as a senior adviser of health and welfare issues and directed the Medicaid and Medicare programs during President George W. Bush’s term. She was also first chair of the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission.

Dr. Wilensky’s career makes for an impressive resume, which includes current and past terms as a director of numerous nonprofit organizations and two public company boards. Her primary goals are to reform Medicare, military healthcare, and comparative effectiveness research.

Dr. Wilensky serves as a current trustee of the United Mine Workers of America’s Combined Benefit Fund as well as the National Opinion Research Center. She also serves on the Harvard Medical School Visiting Committee, the Board of Regents, the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USUHS), and the Geisinger Health System Foundation Board of Directors.

Dr. Wilensky recently headed the Defense Health Board and was a member of the World Health Organization’s Commission on Social Determinants of Health. Her astonishing accomplishments also include terms as co-chair of the Defense Department’s Task Force on the Future of Military Health Care and previous runs as chair of the Physician Payment Review Commission and the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC).

Dr. Wilensky is a frequent contributor on The JAMA Forum on the news@JAMA website, which provides daily news about crucial developments regarding biomedical research, discoveries from major clinical trials, emerging public health threats, new developments in clinical medicine, and much more.