Executive Branch is Looking Up: The Office of the ASPE

On Wednesday and this morning, I had good meetings with some of the people who are workig really hard to restore the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation to it's former glory. APSE is a funny thing- it is supposed to be the Secretary's "Think Tank", the folks who generate ideas and help the Secretary "pull it together". One can tell a lot about an Administration's approach to the Health and Human Services issues by looking at how they staff the ASPE. I've met with 4 of the senior leadership, and it was great. I've got that "I would take a bullet for these people" look in my eye, coming out out of those meetings. I'll try to summarize:

1) Pat Conway: "Medical Director" with a loose portfolio to work on a variety of areas of interest. 3 years out of a RWJ Clinical Scholars program, got a Presidential Fellowship under Mike Leavitt in the Bush Administration, and has been retained in office since the change last year. He is a go getter, interested in CER and EMR and other things, and is involved in lots of discussions. And he was my entre to the rest of these folks.

2) Don Moulds: "Deputy ASPE": Former California Medicaid Policy guy, brought in a year ago to be the Civil Servant paired with the new ASPE to make the system work. Neat guy, curious about lots of things, clicked when we met.

3) Dara Corrigan: Lawyer, former Inspector General for CMS, Directors the Health Policy shop within the ASPE, and someone with whom I would be working. Neat lady, heavily involved in Children's Issues, including cross Department initiatives. Seemed interested in my work with Medical-Legal Partnerships.

4) Richard Franks, Director of Long-Term Services: Genius from Harvard, with a long history in the mental health world. He's spoke with me of working on a newly stood up project involving collaboration with the Department of Education.

Responses from these folks are positive so far.

From Don:

From: "Moulds, Donald (HHS/ASPE)"
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 2009 11:07:02 -0500
Subject: RE: Yesterday's meeting

Dear David,
It was a pleasure meeting you as well. Margaret is (and may have already succeeded in) working to schedule you with Richard, who I think you will enjoy. I look forward to talking again in the next few days.
Best,
Don

From Dara:

From: "Corrigan, Dara (HHS/ASPE)"
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 2009 15:42:36 -0500
Subject: RE: Thanks for meeting yesterday
David:
It was lovely to meet with you. It is inspiring to meet physicians like you who personally take the time to care for kids and fight on the policy side as well. I would welcome the opportunity to talk about medical-legal partnerships.
I look forward to speaking with you soon.
Dara

Very hopeful. I'll see how the next phase goes. Also got a "ping" from the Rockefeller people, which is also hopeful. We will see.