Chiquita Brooks-LaSure Is New CMS Administrator

Chiquita Brooks-LaSure was sworn in last week as administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) following a bipartisan confirmation by the U.S. Senate. She is former policy official who played a key role in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) implementation and has decades of experience in both the federal government and private sector. 

She served as deputy director for policy at the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight within CMS, and earlier at the Department of Health & Human Services as director of coverage policy where she led the agency’s implementation of ACA coverage and insurance reform policy provisions. Prior to that she assisted House leaders in passing several health care laws, including the Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act of 2008 and the ACA, as part of the Democratic staff for the U.S. House of Representatives’ Ways and Means Committee. 

Ms. Brooks-LaSure began her career as a program examiner and lead Medicaid analyst for the Office of Management and Budget, coordinating Medicaid policy development for the health financing branch. Her role included evaluating policy options and briefing White House and federal agency officials on policy recommendations for the uninsured, Medicaid, and the Children’s Health Insurance Program.