Children's Insurance Leader Takes Reins at CMS' Medicaid and State Operations

Public health policy scholar Cindy Mann, a key architect of the Children's Health Insurance Program a decade ago, has been named director of CMS' Center for Medicaid and State Operations.

"Cindy Mann has decades of experience in healthcare financing at the federal and state level, and vast knowledge of healthcare policy," says HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. "She has devoted her career to working on behalf of children and families, the elderly and people with disabilities. She will be an outstanding leader at CMSO, particularly as the nation moves forward with healthcare reform."

Mann, who holds a law degree, most recently served as a research professor and executive director of the Center for Children and Families at Georgetown University's Health Policy Institute, where her research focused on health coverage, financing, and access issues that affect poor people.

From 1999-2001, Mann was the director of the Family and Children's Health Program Group at the Health Care Financing Administration, now CMS. She directed the federal oversight of the Medicaid program that covers families, children, and pregnant women, and she oversaw CHIP implementation. Before joining HCFA, Mann led the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities' federal and state health policy work. She also has worked on state-level healthcare, welfare, and public finance issues in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New York.