Pat Powers to continue as Acting Administrative Officer
through the end of December
SACRAMENTO – The California Health Benefit Exchange Board
unanimously approved the appointment of Peter V. Lee as its first Executive
Director, Chair Diana Dooley announced today.
"Peter is a nationally respected leader in health care
who has led innovative projects aimed at promoting health, improving care
quality and reducing cost in the health care delivery system," said Dooley,
who is also California Health and Human Services Secretary. "His more than
25 years of health policy experience and deep understanding of California's challenges
and opportunities make him the right leader to ensure the success of our new health
insurance marketplace."
As Executive Director, Lee will oversee the planning,
development and ongoing administration and evaluation of the California Health
Benefit Exchange. He will join the Health Benefit Exchange on October 17, 2011.
"I am honored, humbled and excited by the opportunity
to lead the California Health Benefit Exchange," said Lee. "It is an
historic time in reforming our health care system and the California Health
Benefit Exchange will serve as a national trailblazer toward establishing new
consumer-oriented health insurance marketplaces to help more people have access
to quality affordable health care."
Lee currently serves as the Deputy Director for the Center
for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
(CMS) in Washington DC where he has helped shape initiatives to identify, test,
and support new models of care in Medicare and Medicaid that can result in
higher quality care while reducing costs.
Previously he served as the Director of Delivery System Reform
at the federal Health and Human Services' Office of Health Reform.
"Peter's leadership has helped to chart a course toward
a patient-centered, value-based health care system,” said Kathleen Sebelius,
Secretary of Health and Human Services. "I'm encouraged that we will be
able to keep working with him as he applies his talents to launching the
Exchange in his home state of California."
From 2000-2008, he served as the Executive Director and Chief
Executive Officer of the Pacific Business Group on Health in San Francisco. From
1995-2000, Lee served as the Executive Director of the Center for Health Care
Rights and from 1993-1995, he practiced law at Tuttle and Taylor in Los
Angeles. From 1984-1993, he served in a variety of leadership positions in
Washington DC, including the Director of Programs for the National AIDS
Network. Lee holds a Juris Doctorate from the University of Southern California
and a Bachelor of Arts from the University of California at Berkeley.
California was the first state to create a Health Benefit
Exchange following the passage of federal health care reform. It is charged
with creating a new insurance marketplace in which individuals and small
businesses will be able to purchase competitively priced health plans using
federal tax subsidies and credits beginning in 2014.
The Exchange is overseen by a five-member board appointed by
the Governor and Legislature; the California Health and Human Services Secretary
serves as an ex officio voting member and is its current Chair
For more
information on the Exchange including meeting calendar, visit
www.HealthExchange.ca.gov.
