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Gail R. Wilensky, PhD

Gail Wilensky is an economist and senior fellow at Project HOPE and currently serves as president of the Defense Health Board. Her primary areas of expertise involve the policies and politics of health care reform, particularly Medicare and changes in the health care environment. A secondary area of expertise involves military health care. Dr. Wilensky was a member of the 2007 President’s Commission on the Care of Returning Wounded Warriors (Dole/Shalala Commission). 

From 2006 to 2008, she co-chaired the congressionally-mandated Defense Department Task Force on the Future of Military Health Care. From 2001 to 2003, she co-chaired the President’s Task Force to Improve Health Care Delivery for Our Nation’s Veteran’s, which addressed health care for both veterans and military retirees. From 1997 to 2001, she chaired the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission which advises Congress on payment and other issues relating to Medicare. She also served as deputy assistant for Policy Development to President George H.W. Bush, advising him on health and welfare issues. Prior to this, she served as the administrator of the Health Care Financing Administration (now CMS), overseeing the Medicare and Medicaid programs.

Dr. Wilensky is an elected member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies and has served two terms on its governing council. She serves as a trustee of the Combined Benefits Fund of the United Mine Workers and the National Opinion Research Center, is on the Board of Regents of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences and on the visiting committee of the Harvard Medical School. She is a former chair of the board of directors of Academy Health, a former trustee of the American Heart Association and a former commissioner on the WHO Commission on the Social Determinants of Health. 

Dr. Wilensky is the recipient of numerous awards, has several honorary degrees and has published extensively.  She received a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a PhD in economics from the University of Michigan.