Nancy-Ann DeParle

Deputy White House chief of staff (since January 2011)

(Washington Post)

Why She Matters

As Obama's health czar, DeParle was the administration's "point guard" in overhauling the American health-care system. She worked closely with her old friend, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on the administration's big legislative win.

A veteran of the Clinton health-reform wars, DeParle brought institutional memory to the job as well as an understanding of the arcane nooks of government-funded health-insurance plans. She's an expert on Medicare and Medicaid, and helped the Obama administration expand those programs in pursuit of more universal coverage.

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Background

At a Glance

Career History: Head of White House Office of Health Reform (March 2009 to January 2011); Managing Director, CCMP Capital (since 2001); Adjunct professor, Wharton School of Business (since 2001); Commissioner, Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (since 2001); Fellow, Harvard Institue of Politics (2000 to 2001); Director, Healthcare Financing Administration (1997 to 2000)
Birthday: December 17, 1956
Hometown: Rockwood, Tenn.

Alma Mater: University of Tennessee at Knoxville, B.A. (history), 1978; Balliol College, Oxford University, B.A. (politics, philosophy and economics), 1981; Harvard Law School, J.D., 1983; Oxford University, M.Sc., 1986
Spouse: Jason DeParle
Web site

Path to Power

Nancy-Ann Min was born in Cleveland, Ohio, but grew up in Rockwood, Tenn., raised by a single mother, June Cooley Min, a secretary for the State Department of Conservation.

DeParle's interest in paying for health care comes from experience. Nancy-Ann was only a teenageer when her mother was diagnosed with aggressive lung cancer. June continued working through her painful treatments so she coud hang onto her job-sponsored health insurance, and even .

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Nancy-Ann won a scholarship to the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, where she was a standout student and the first woman elected as president of the student government association.

She graduated from UT with a major in history in 1978, and went on to Harvard Law School.

In her first year at Harvard, she was selected as a Rhodes Scholar and left to study at Balliol College at Oxford University. She earned an honors B.A. in politics, philosophy and economics in 1981, and returned to Harvard to finish her J.D., which she earned in 1983.

After law school she won a prestigious clerkship on the 6th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, which covers Tennessee, Kentucky, Michigan and Ohio. She then returned to Oxford to pick up a master's in 1986, before going back to Nashville to practice at the law firm of Bass, Berry & Sims.

In 1987, Tennessee governor Ned McWherter (D) asked her to head the Tennessee Department of Human Services. The 6,000- employee agency administered food stamps, child welfare and Medicaid programs in Tennessee.

DeParle returned to Bass, Berry & Sims in 1989. She moved to Washington, D.C., in 1991 to join the law firm of Covington & Burling.

Clinton White House

In 1993, the 36-year-old was named the associate director for health and personnel at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). In that capacity, she served as the OMB's representative on health-care reform during Bill Clinton's first term. In 1994, Time magazine named her one of its top 50 future leaders.

But the Clinton health plan was defeated, and in July 1997, DeParle moved to the Department of Health and Human Services as deputy director of the Health Care Financing Administration, which is now known as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. She became that office's administrator for the last three years of Clinton's presidency.

That's where she first met her current comrade-in-arms, Sebelius. At the time, Sebelius, who is now HHS secretary, was the Kansas insurance commissioner. The two women met in the White House mess, when then-HHS secretary Donna Shalala introduced them during the battle to draft a patients' bill of rights to curb the power of managed care companies. It was the beginning of what Sebelius later called "a natural alliance."

In 2001, DeParle left government to take a year-long fellowship at Harvard's Institute of Politics, where she was part of Harvard's Health Care Policy Forum and led a weekly study group on reforming Medicare.

Private Sector

DeParle then entered the private sector. She took a job as a senior adviser to JPMorgan, which turned into a managing director position in their private equity spin-off, CCMP Capital Advisors. She was also an adjunct professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business, where she focused on health policy.

Over the next few years, she took seats on prominent boards, including Medco Health Solutions, health- information technology company the Cerner Corporation, medical device manufacturer Boston Scientific, Legacy Hospital Partners and Triad Hospitals, to name just a few.

She also became a commissioner of the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC), the independent committee that advises Congress on what Medicare should pay health-care providers. Some reform advocates, notably Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), have proposed beefing up MedPAC to become an oversight organization in a proposed publicly-funded health plan.

Furthermore, DeParle became a trustee of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, a health non-profit, and is on the editorial board of Health Affairs magazine.

The Issues

DeParle found herself at the helm of an office tailor-made for ex-Senate Majority Leader Daschle (D-S.D.). The former senator and early Obama supporter had negotiated a position as head of the newly-created White House Office of Health Reform to complement his cabinet post as Health and Human Services secretary. But when Daschle withdrew, DeParle headed to the White House and old friend Sebelius took the HHS job.

The two women helped White House aides negotiate with lawmakers, insurance companies and interest groups, some of whom initially supported a reform effort. But insurers broke off after the House passed a bill (with a public option) in November 2009, while the Senate approved its own bill (without a public option) in December 2009. The effort stalled after Republicans won the Massachusetts Senate seat of the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) in January 2010.

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After more than a year of legislative wrangling, the House passed the Senate version of health-care reform on March 21, 2010, clearing the way for the Senate to approve a package of amendments insisted on by the lower chamber with a simple majority (using a process known as reconciliation).

The $940 billion bill requires most Americans to carry health insurance and requires that insurance companies cover them, regardless of pre-existing conditions. It establishes a national insurance exchange allowing Americans to compare and purchase insurance plans. The bill will be paid for by increasing taxes on well-off Medicare recipients and by taxing premium insurance plans. By the end of the bill's 10-year roll-out, 32 million uninsured Americans will have health coverage and the deficit will be $138 billion lower, the Congressional Budget Office estimated.

Medicare and Medicaid

As head of the HHS Health Care Financing Administration under Clinton, DeParle ran the largest health-insurance provider in America, overseeing $600 billion in payments annually to 74 million recipients of Medicare and Medicaid.

Before that, she spent two years as Tennessee's human services commissioner and four years as OMB's health expert. In the latter capacity, she the OMB's representative to the Clinton health-care reform team.

Private Sector

During the George W. Bush years, DeParle honed her experience in the private sector. She sat on the boards of many health companies, from medical treatment producers to hospital systems. She also served as a managing director of a private equity firm called CCMP Capital, using her expert knowledge of complicated Medicare reimbursement cycles to advise the company on acquisitions.

DeParle's industry knowledge enabled her to understand the needs of many stakeholders in the health-care debate.

DeParle's contacts already helped avoid one pitfall, Politico reported. When she heard that insurance company BlueCross BlueShield of North Carolina planned a series of Internet ads criticizing the White House-supported public insurance option, DeParle got on the phone to the company's CEO. The end result: the ads were yanked.

In a position to remake how the health industry doles out money, DeParle will have to go out of her way to avoid any semblance of favoritism, especially towards industries or companies she's made money from in the past.

DeParle's private-sector connections raised eyebrows when she helped get the ball rolling on a deal between her employer, CCMP Capital, and Triad Hospitals, where she sits on the board. After introducing the two parties, DeParle says she recused herself and had nothing further to do with the deal.

The Network

Since 1997, DeParle has been married to Jason DeParle, a New York Times correspondent in the Washington bureau.

For DeParle's first two years in the Clinton White House, she served under then-OMB head Leon Panetta. Panetta is now Obama's CIA director.

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Campaign Contributions

DeParle gave $2,300 to Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) in early 2007, as the senator geared up for an unsuccessful presidential bid, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. In September 2008, DeParle donated $2,300 each to Clinton and Barack Obama.

In 2007 and 2008, DeParle also made large donations to a slew of Democrats, including Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.), whose committee has jurisdiction over health-care reform, and then-Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.), who is now White House chief of staff.