The USC-Brookings Schaeffer Initiative for Health Policy Welcomes Three New Non-Resident Fellows

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The USC-Brookings Schaeffer Initiative for Health Policy welcomes three new non-resident fellows this week – Mike Chernew, Sherry Glied, and Rachel Sachs. “I am delighted that these three remarkable scholars will be part of our SIHP team. They are terrific colleagues and will enhance our reach,” said Director of the USC-Brookings Schaeffer Initiative for Health Policy Richard Frank.

Michael Chernew is the Leonard D. Schaeffer Professor of Health Care Policy and the Director of the Healthcare Markets and Regulation (HMR) Lab in the Department of Health Care Policy at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Chernew’s research is focused on improving the health care system, including studies of novel benefit designs, Medicare Advantage, alternative payment models, low value care, and the causes and consequences of rising health care spending.

Dr. Chernew is currently serving as the chair of Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC). In 2000, 2004, and 2010, he served on technical advisory panels for the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) that reviewed the assumptions used by Medicare actuaries to assess the financial status of Medicare trust funds. He is a member of the Congressional Budget Office’s Panel of Health Advisors and vice chair of the Massachusetts Health Connector Board. Dr. Chernew is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, and a senior visiting fellow at MITRE. He is currently a co-editor of the American Journal of Managed Care.

Sherry Glied is the Dean of the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service at New York University. Glied’s principal areas of research are in health policy reform and mental health care policy. Her books on health care reform include Chronic Condition (1998) and Better But Not Well: Mental Health Policy in the U.S. since 1950, (with Richard Frank, 2006). She is co-editor, with Peter C. Smith, of The Oxford Handbook of Health Economics, which was published by the Oxford University Press in 2011.

From 1989-2013, Dr. Glied was Professor of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. She was chair of the Department of Health Policy and Management from 1998-2009. On June 22, 2010, Glied was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as assistant secretary for planning and evaluation at the Department of Health and Human Services and served in that capacity through August 2012. She had previously served as senior economist for health care and labor market policy on the President’s Council of Economic Advisers in 1992-1993 under Presidents Bush and Clinton and participated in the Clinton Health Care Task Force. She has been elected to the National Academy of Medicine, the National Academy of Social Insurance, and served as a member of the Commission on Evidence-Based Policymaking.

Rachel Sachs is the Treiman Professor of Law at Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. She is a scholar of innovation policy, exploring health law, food and drug regulation, and intellectual property law, with a particular focus on problems of innovation and access to new prescription drugs. Her scholarship has appeared in journals including The NYU Law Review, The Michigan Law Review, The Harvard Law Review, The New England Journal of Medicine, and The Journal of the American Medical Association.

Prior to joining the law faculty at Washington University in St. Louis, Professor Sachs was an academic fellow at the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics and a lecturer in Law at Harvard Law School. She also clerked for the Hon. Richard A. Posner of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. While at Washington University in St. Louis, Professor Sachs has engaged with state and federal policymakers on the topic of prescription drug pricing, including testifying before the United States Congress. She currently serves on the Board of Editors for the Journal of Health Politics, Policy, and Law.

The USC-Brookings Schaeffer Initiative for Health Policy is a partnership between Economic Studies at Brookings and the USC Schaeffer Center for Health Policy & Economics that aims to inform the national health care debate with rigorous, evidence-based analysis leading to practical recommendations using the collaborative strengths of USC and Brookings. The Initiative was founded by Leonard D. Schaeffer to improve health policy by supporting high-quality research.