Meet Dr. Gail Wilensky

Keep Your Head High and Standards Higher

Gail Wilensky, Ph.D.

Gail R. Wilensky, Ph.D. is an economist and senior fellow at Project HOPE, an international health foundation. She also co-chairs the Bipartisan Policy Center’s initiative on the future of health care. She directed the Medicare and Medicaid programs, served in the White House as a senior adviser on health and welfare issues to President GHW Bush and was the first chair of the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission. Her expertise is on strategies to reform health care, Medicare, comparative effectiveness research and military healthcare.

Dr. Wilensky currently serves as a trustee of the Combined Benefits Fund of the United Mine Workers of America and the National Opinion Research Center, and is on the board of directors of the Geisinger Health System Foundation, the National Alliance for Hispanic Health and Project HOPE. She is also on the Council of Directors of the Henry Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine. She is a director of United Health Group, Quest Diagnostics and View Ray and is a former chair of the board of directors of Academy Health and numerous other not for profit organizations.

She is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine and served two terms on its governing council. She has testified many times before Congressional committees and has been as adviser to members of Congress and other elected officials. She received a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a Ph.D. in economics at the University of Michigan, has received several honorary degrees and was awarded the 2019 Adam Yarmolinsky medal by the National Academy of Medicine.