LOS ANGELES – Walter Zelman, Ph.D professor, and chair of the Department of Health Science at California State University, Los Angeles, is the new chair of L.A. Care’s Board of Governors for a one-year term.
Dr. Zelman leads a 13-member stakeholder board, which includes representatives of community clinics, hospitals, federally qualified health centers, doctors, members, advocates, and Los Angeles County. Dr. Zelman has been an L.A. Care board member for over seven years, representing the Knox-Keene Licenced Pre-Paid Health Plans. He served as vice chair for five years.
“With the coming of the new health care law and the 1115 Medi-Cal Waiver, L.A. Care will play an even more critical role in ensuring that quality health care is delivered to vulnerable and low-income populations in Los Angeles County,” says Dr. Zelman. “The changes will create both challenges and opportunities for LA Care. I am strongly committed to working with myfellow board members to meet those challenges and make the most of those opportunities.”
Dr. Zelman also serves on the Board of Advisors for the Insure the Uninsured Project, a non-partisan organization created to increase coverage for the 6.6 million uninsured in California.
As a health policy expert Dr. Zelman has published two books and numerous articles on health care markets and policy, including studies of California’s 2007-2008 effort to achieve health reform, and of the possible role of Medicaid-focused health plans in the exchanges to be created under health reform.
Dr. Zelman has served as special deputy in the California Department of Insurance, a senior White House health care advisor during the Clinton administration, and executive director of California Common Cause, a non-profit, non-partisan citizens' lobby organization. Dr. Zelman is the former president of the California Association of Health Plans, a trade association of California’s managed care insurance plans.
The other new officers on the L.A. Care board include Dr. Thomas Horowitz,osteopathic physician at Good Samaritan Hospital and St. Vincent Medical Center, as vice chair; Philip Browning, Director of the Los Angeles County Department of Public Social Services as treasurer; and Mario Ramos, member advocate, as secretary.
# # #