Source: Obama to name chief for Medicare, Medicaid

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An administration official says President Obama will nominate healthcare scholar Dr. Donald Berwick to oversee Medicare and Medicaid, the nation’s health insurance programs for the elderly and the poor.

Berwick is a pediatrician and noted health policy expert who runs the nonprofit Institute for Healthcare Improvement in Massachusetts. He will be tapped as the administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, a position subject to Senate confirmation.

The administration official spoke on condition of anonymity because the president has not made his decision public.

The agency is a unit of the Department of Health and Human Services.

The center’s programs serve roughly 100 million people, or 1 in 3 Americans.

-- Associated Press