Commission Members

Michael Chernew, Ph.D., is the Leonard D. Schaeffer Professor of Health Care Policy and the director of the Healthcare Markets and Regulation (HMR) Lab in the Department of Health Care Policy at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Chernew’s research examines several areas related to improving the health care system including studies of novel benefit designs, Medicare Advantage, alternative payment models, low value care and the causes and consequences of rising health care spending.

Dr. Chernew served on MedPAC from 2008 to 2014 and was Vice Chair from 2012 to 2014. In 2000, 2004, and 2010, he served on technical advisory panels for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) that reviewed the assumptions used by Medicare actuaries to assess the financial status of Medicare trust funds. He is a member of the Congressional Budget Office’s Panel of Health Advisors and Vice Chair of the Massachusetts Health Connector Board. Dr. Chernew is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He is currently a co-editor of the American Journal of Managed Care.

Dr. Chernew earned his undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania and his Ph.D. in economics from Stanford University. In 1998, he was awarded the John D. Thompson Prize for Young Investigators by the Association of University Programs in Public Health. In 1999, he received the Alice S. Hersh Young Investigator Award from the Association of Health Services Research.

Brian DeBusk, Ph.D., is chief executive officer of DeRoyal Industries in Powell, TN, which operates in the surgical, orthopedic, wound care, and health care information technology markets. He also serves as vice chairman of the Board of Trustees of Lincoln Memorial University in rural Tennessee, which includes graduate medical education programs for physicians, physician assistants, nurse practitioners, and nurses. Dr. DeBusk’s prior employment includes General Electric, Inobis, and Pace Energy Systems. He has served on the faculty of both the University of Tennessee and Lincoln Memorial University, teaching classes in information technology and business strategy. Dr. DeBusk holds a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Vanderbilt University and a master of business administration from Emory University.

senior vice president/chief population health officer at UW Health and as president of UW Health ACO Inc., where he is responsible for the overall development, coordination, and implementation of the population health strategy. A board-certified nephrologist, Dr. Jaffery holds a B.A. in Russian literature from the University of Michigan and an M.D. from The Ohio State University College of Medicine. He completed an internal medicine residency and nephrology fellowship at the University of Vermont. A former Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Policy Fellow and chief medical officer for the Wisconsin State Medicaid program, Dr. Jaffery has graduate degrees from the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health and the University of Southern California Marshall School of Business.

degree from the Medical College of Virginia at Virginia Commonwealth University, where he also completed his residency training in internal medicine.

Betty Rambur, Ph.D., R.N., F.A.A.N., is the Routhier Endowed Chair for Practice and Professor of Nursing in the College of Nursing at the University of Rhode Island in Kingston, RI, where she has conducted research on such topics as alternative payment models, telehealth nursing, and Big Data. Prior to joining the University of Rhode Island, Dr. Rambur served on the Green Mountain Care Board—a five member regulatory, innovation, and evaluation board that has broad responsibility for cost-containment and oversight of Vermont’s transition to post fee-for-service provider reimbursement. Previously, Dr. Rambur served as Dean of the College of Nursing and Health Sciences at the University of Vermont and was also Chairperson for the North Dakota Health Task Force, a statewide healthcare financing reform initiative. Dr. Rambur received her Ph.D. in nursing from Rush University.

Jaewon Ryu, M.D., J.D., is the president and CEO for Geisinger, an integrated health care system headquartered in Danville, PA, that comprises hospitals, employed providers, a health plan, a medical school, and research and innovation centers. He previously served as president of integrated care delivery at Humana and held leadership roles at the University of Illinois Hospital & Health Sciences System and at Kaiser Permanente. Dr. Ryu received his undergraduate education at Yale University and his medical and law degrees from the University of Chicago, after which he completed his residency training in emergency medicine at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center.