Governor Baker recently announced two very important picks for health care positions, including the new heads of MassHealth and the Connector. We’ll have to wait and see how they perform, but initial research into one of their backgrounds leaves me scratching my head.
The new head of the Connector will be Louis Gutierrez. He looks to be incredibly accomplished and experienced in the health care IT world, with multiple stints in state government, work in federal government, and private sector health care experience. It seems a bit weird that he’s more of an IT person than a health care person, but he probably understands managing the tech aspects of the Connector as well as anyone. And given how all the recent attention is on the tech failure at the Connector, this seems like a decent pick.
The MassHealth pick, on the other hand . . .
What the . . .
Daniel Tsai will now be running the Commonwealth’s Medicaid program. From what I can gather, Tsai graduated from Harvard (undergrad) in 2007 and has worked at McKinsey in their health care practice since then, with some focus on Medicaid consulting. That’s it.
No doubt he’ll make every 30 Under 30 Boston Magazine or whatever else list, but this is a tough pick to support. Medicaid is too important. I hope I am wrong, but I can’t help but worry about this pick.
What do you think?
Gutierrez makes sense in many ways. When you look at the states that have bungled their exchange roll-outs, or the failed Heathcare.Gov roll-out, it’s typically been because you didn’t have IT people running the show (Or incompetent contractors). The Health Connector is really an IT focused job.
Tsai is an interesting one. His LinkedIn profile shows he started at McKinsey in 2007, but I don’t see his graduation date from Harvard on there? He does look pretty young… BBJ reports he leads McKindsey’s Medicaid consulting group.
For example, Marty Walsh’s chief of staff:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielakoh
Guterriez is a professional acquaintance who I always found to be incredibly thoughtful and open. His tech skills are top notch. He is soft spoken and chooses his words well, but not in a politically calculating way. He does not allow himself to be used as part of anyone’s partisan agenda. This may be Baker’s best pick yet.
At least we will have a non-Olympic topic of conversation at the BMG party. Just direct me to the health wonk table when you see me.
…but it turns out I was thinking of Congressman LUIS Gutierrez of Illinois. Incidently when you put the subject of this diary into the Google searchbar, it immediately asks if you meant the Congressman and provides links for him.
William Weld, in 1980, plucks the similarly in-experienced Charles Duane Baker from the relative obscurity of the Pioneer Institute and fast-tracks him into increasing positions of importance. In 2015 now-Governor Baker does the same thing, possibly to validate the earlier choice…
.. Oh! By ‘extraordinary’ you meant is he qualified? My bad.
Well, we can be certain that Daniel Tsai has a certain brilliance, as does Governor Baker, whether or no he can transcend the complete lack of imagination, inability to empathize, and the zero self-analysis typified by the particular sort of brilliance the Gov has, remains to be seen.
Connector IT could definitely use some upgrading so I am glad to see Gutierrez back in the saddle. He sounds like he is not afraid to advocate for his department and the resources required.
McKinsey has been active in health reform implementations in various states. Tsai’s expertise seems to be in the economics of bundled payments, so that would be a tip-off that it is a high priority item for Baker.