CMS has installed its first Chief Economist to inject incentive‑aware analysis into day‑to‑day rules, targeted internal projects, and longer‑run research. The role is explicitly aimed at tackling affordability, fraud, and coding incentives across Medicare, Medicaid, and the exchanges. Institutionalizing this function at a $2 trillion payer could change how U.S. health costs are governed.
— It signals a shift from ad‑hoc rulemaking to embedded economic governance in the nation’s largest health programs, with consequences for spending, fraud control, and plan behavior.
Chris Pope
2026.01.16
70% relevant
The article debates insurer led cost‑control (prior authorization) as a form of cost governance in health care; that connects to the existing idea that embedding economic analysis into agencies (e.g., CMS) changes everyday rules for affordability and provider incentives. Both concern who enforces cost discipline and how institutional design shapes outcomes.
2025.12.30
60% relevant
The Most‑Read compilation flags health‑care investigations (the Albany, GA hospital project and the single‑pill pricing story). Those pieces feed into the public debate about whether federal agencies should more aggressively use economic tools to contain health costs — the idea that CMS institutionalizes economics to enforce affordability.
Arnold Kling
2025.12.01
62% relevant
Kling’s piece argues the moral logic (not market failure) drives public provision; that reframing affects how one views roles like CMS’s Chief Economist who must translate political mandates into cost controls—if collectivization is value‑driven, the emphasis shifts from correcting market failures to rationing and cost‑allocation, which is exactly the terrain a chief economist would shape.
Santi Ruiz
2025.10.02
100% relevant
Anup Malani outlines his three‑part mandate as the inaugural CMS Chief Economist—real‑time advice, discrete process‑improvement projects, and policy research.