At the August 10 meeting of the Health Services Cost Review Commission, the chair up until now occupied by Dr. Stephen Jencks instead will be taken by Joseph Antos. Antos was quietly named by the Governor last month to replace Jencks, who had been eligible for reappointment after his term expired June 30.

 

This is a return to the HSCRC for Antos, a former two-term member who served from 2004 until 2012.  Well-versed in health care policy and an economist at heart, his resume reaches into various corners of federal health policy: the Congressional Budget Office, the Health Care Financing Administration (precursor to CMS), the Department of Health & Human Services, the World Bank, the Office of Management and Budget and the Department of Labor. As the Wilson H. Taylor Scholar in Health Care and Retirement Policy at the American Enterprise Institute, his research focuses on the economics of health policy - including the Affordable Care Act, Medicare, the uninsured, and the overall reform of the health care system and its financing -- and the impact of health care expenditures on federal budget policy. You can read more about his work here.

 

For us as a field, the appointment of a new commissioner is an opportunity to work with an expert who understands all sides of the issues. Thanks to Antos' previous experience on the HSCRC, there isn't much of a learning curve about Maryland's unique payment model. His distinct perspective is welcome at this sensitive time of the all-payer model's five-year tenure, as all stakeholders negotiate the path forward.