Dean Frank announces Mase winner
A former director of the federal Health Care Financing Administration has been honored with a leadership award from the University of Florida College of Health Professions.
Gail R. Wilensky, a health policy expert and health economist, is the seventh winner of the Darrel J. Mase Distinguished Leadership Award, named in memory of the founding dean of the College of Health Professions. Dr. Mase led the school for 13 years from its opening in 1958.
Wilensky, who was honored at a dinner Feb. 9 at Gainesville’s Heritage Club, also delivered a speech at UF that day on “The Future of Health Care.”
“Gail Wilensky has, over recent years, been one of the nation's most prominent health policy experts. In addition to her research, she has been an important public servant,” said Robert G. Frank, dean of the College of Health Professions. “She is an outstanding example of precisely the kind of leadership the Mase award is intended to honor.”
Award recipients receive a bronze medal in the likeness of Mase as well as an honorarium.
Wilensky currently serves as the John M. Olin senior fellow at Project HOPE, an international health foundation dedicated to achieving sustainable advances in health care around the world. In that position, she analyzes and develops policies regarding health reform and changes in the medical marketplace.
She also chairs the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, which advises Congress on Medicare expenditure issues. Previously, she chaired the Physician Payment Review Commission.
During her two years as administrator of the Health Care Financing Administration, Wilensky directed the Medicare and Medicaid programs, essentially running the largest health insurance company in the world. She then moved on to the White House, where she served as an adviser to President Bush on health and welfare issues.
In 1989, Wilensky was elected to the Institute of Medicine, the biomedical arm of the National Academy of Sciences, becoming one of only a few health economists to be accorded such an honor.