I had a conversation last week at Heart House with Nancy-Ann Min DeParle within 24 hours of her announcement as the director-designee of the White House Office on Health Policy. That’s a good sign. Fortunately, I’ve known and respected her for 10 years at least. As the White House Health Policy Chief, she will be working with Jeanne Lambrew, Ph.D. (formerly of our own Blue Ribbon Panel Task Force), and Kavita Patel, M.D. (our friend, formerly on Kennedy’s Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee) to help design the reform process and sell it to Congress. HHS will also be very involved, but the White House will drive the process. There are some traditions in how this works: the White House directs the lobbying process in Congress, but the Secretary does all the official Congressional testimonies -- so they need to work together to make it happen. Fortunately Nancy and Secretary-designee Sebelius know each other well, and already feel they can work together.

Nancy Ann is very smart, and truly a breath of fresh air. She recognizes she needs to find a way to expand access (while Orzag figures out how to pay for it), and also to lower rising costs (she and Orzag will need to do this together). But she is clear she didn’t sign up for this job to have to cut beleaguered providers to pay for the reforms. She was clear that things that still work well don’t need to be reformed. She also knows that she needs enlightened and willing doctors to help her -- and she emphasized to me she needs the ACC to help her take on the quality of care and payment reform challenges. We’ve got respected friends in nearly all the key positions. True, we need to get to know Governor Sebelius better, but I’m optimistic we can help members, patients, the reform process, and have a major impact on what happens.