January 5, 2007
MORE FRIENDS IN ALBANY
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Bachrach is new Spitzer health czar |
New York Governor Eliot Spitzer made two more excellent appointments on Thursday, naming two lawyers who are longtime AIDS and human services champions to top posts.
Deborah Bachrach and Joe Baker have worked hip-to-hip with AIDS advocates and people living with HIV/AIDS throughout their careers: Spitzer scored big-time with these two.
Bachrach will serve as a sort of Medicaid and health care czar at NYSDOH, overseeing the nation's largest Medicaid program while working to expand health care coverage to all New Yorkers.
Baker — a former honcho of legal services at GMHC — will serve Spitzer on the second floor of the Capitol as Asst. Dep. Secy. For Health and Human Services, working closely with Dennis Whalen.
Deborah Bachrach will serve as Deputy Commissioner of the Office of Health Insurance Programs (OHIP) as well as the State's Medicaid Director. OHIP is a newly created office within the Department of Health, charged with operating the State's public health insurance programs: Medicaid, Family Health Plus, Child Health Plus and EPIC.
From 1992 until November 2006, Ms. Bachrach was a partner at the law firm of Manatt, Phelps & Phillips where she served as Co-Chair of the Not-For-Profit Practice group. Between 1987 and 1992, Ms. Bachrach served as Vice President of External Affairs at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center. Before joining St. Luke's-Roosevelt, she served for four years as Chief Assistant Attorney General in the office of New York State Attorney General Robert Abrams.
Previously, Ms. Bachrach had served for three years as Chief of the Attorney General's Civil Rights Bureau. She was also an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Law at the New York University School of Law where she taught the Public Interest Seminar. Ms. Bachrach received her B.S. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1971, and her J.D. from NYU School of Law in 1974.
Joe Baker will serve as the Assistant Deputy Secretary for Health and Human Services. Mr. Baker previously served as Health Care Bureau Chief in the Office of the New York State Attorney General. From 1994 - 2001, Mr. Baker was Executive Vice President of the Medicare Rights Center, which became one of the nation's leading Medicare consumer organizations during his tenure.
Previously, Mr. Baker was the Associate Director of Legal Services for Gay Men's Health Crisis. He has served as a member of the Standards Committee and the Consumer Advisory
Council of the National Committee for Quality Assurance and the Co-Chair of the Consumer/Patient Rights Subcommittee of the Health Law Section of the New York State Bar Association.
Mr. Baker has also served as a Consumer Representative of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. Mr. Baker received a B.A. and a J.D. from the University of Virginia.