Bush To Nominate FDA Commissioner McClellan as CMS Administrator This Week
President Bush as early as Thursday plans to nominate FDA Commissioner Mark McClellan to serve as the new CMS administrator, according to congressional sources, the Washington Post reports (Washington Post, 2/19). Former CMS Administrator Tom Scully resigned last month and accepted a position in the Washington, D.C., office of the Atlanta-based law firm Alston & Bird. McClellan, a physician with a doctorate in economics, supports use of the private sector to improve health care quality, a large part of the new Medicare law, according to news reports (HR 1) that CMS will implement in the next several years. McClellan would likely win Senate confirmation for the CMS administrator position, but he could face challenges because of his opposition to prescription drug reimportation (California Healthline, 2/12).
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