PERSON: Gerald Kominski

UCLA

Director of UCLA School of Public Health

Gerald Kominski, Ph.D., is a Professor of Health Policy and Management and Director of the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research. He also currently serves as an Associate Director of the California Medicaid Research Institute (CaMRI), and represents UCLA in this multi-campus collaborative effort. His research interests focus on evaluating the costs and cost-effectiveness of health care programs and technologies, with a special emphasis on public insurance programs, including Medicare, Medicaid, and Workers’ Compensation; improving access and health outcomes among ethnic and vulnerable populations; and developing microsimulation models for forecasting eligibility, enrollment, and expenditures under health reform. He currently serves as PI of several multi-year evaluations of Medicaid 1115 waiver demonstration projects in California involving disease management for fee-for-service Medi-Cal beneficiaries and expansion of coverage for low-income uninsured adults otherwise ineligible for Medi-Cal through county-based indigent care programs. From 2003-2009, he served as Vice Chair for the Cost Impact Analysis Team of the California Health Benefits Review Program (CHBRP), which conducts legislative analyses for the California legislature of proposals to expand mandated insurance benefits. From 2001-2008, he was Associate Dean for Academic Programs at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health.

Dr. Kominski received his Ph.D. in public policy analysis from the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School in 1985, and his A.B. from the University of Chicago in 1978. Prior to joining the faculty at UCLA in 1989, he served for three and a half years as a staff member of the agency now known as the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC). He is co-author of over 120 articles and reports, and co-editor of the widely used textbook, Changing the U.S. Health Care System: Key Issues in Health Services Policy and Management, which was published in its 3rd edition in 2007.

--UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, Department of Health Policy and Management