Author

Michael Chernew

Professor, Department of Health Care Policy, Harvard Medical School

Michael Chernew, Ph.D., is a professor in the Department of Health Care Policy at Harvard Medical School.  Dr. Chernew’s research activities focus on several areas, most notably the causes and consequences of growth in health care expenditures, geographic variation in medical spending and use and Value Based Insurance Design (VBID).  Professor Chernew is a member of the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC), which is an independent agency established to advise the U.S. Congress on issues affecting the Medicare program.  He is also a member of the Congressional Budget Office’s Panel of Health Advisors and Commonwealth Foundation’s Commission on a High Performance Health System. In 2000, 2004 and 2011, he served on technical advisory panels for the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) that reviewed the assumptions used by the Medicare actuaries to assess the financial status of the Medicare trust funds. Dr. Chernew is a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research. He co-edits the American Journal of Managed Care and is a Senior Associate Editor of Health Services Research. In 2010, Dr. Chernew was elected to the Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the National Academy of Sciences and serves on the Committee on the Determination of Essential Health Benefits. Dr. Chernew earned his undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania and a doctorate in economics from Stanford University.