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Core of Leavitt's Team Dates To His Days as Utah Governor

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During four years at the Porter Novelli public affairs firm, DeFrancis supervised several large projects for health industry groups, including the Health Benefits Coalition and the Pharmaceutical Care Management Association.

DeFrancis is a graduate of the National Cathedral School in Washington and the University of Colorado. DeFrancis and her husband have three children.

· Jennifer Young , 36, senior counselor for health policy, is a self-professed "Hill rat" with more than eight years' experience in Congress. She has worked for both the House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee, focusing on health programs such as Medicaid, Medicare and the State Children's Health Insurance Program.

She has also worked for the National Governors Association and Republican George V. Voinovich when he was governor of Ohio.

Young joined HHS in 2002, working in then-Secretary Tommy G. Thompson's legislative affairs office. There she helped push for passage of the drug bill in late 2003 and served as the Bush administration's principal liaison on HHS legislation.

Young, a graduate of Georgetown University, is spending much of her time on implementation of the new Medicare drug law, which will provide medication coverage to seniors beginning Jan. 1.

Young and her husband have twins, a son and a daughter.

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