Former CMS Administrator to head think-tank unit

Mark McClellan, the former Administrator of the US Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and who was in charge of the introduction of the Medicare Part D prescription drug benefit (Marketletters passim), is to head the newly-formed Engelberg Center for Health Care Reform at the Brookings Institution, the oldest US think-tank.

Strobe Tabott, the think-tank's president, described the appointment of Mr McClellan as "one of the timeliest and most ambitious ventures we have ever undertaken at Brookings."

The mission of the Engelberg Center will be to shape public health care policy. As a think-tank which has appeal to both Democrats and Republicans, the Brookings Institute is the third most cited public policy institute, after the conservative-oriented Heritage Foundation and the more liberal American Civil Liberties' Union.