Nancy-Ann DeParle - Famous Chinese Americans

Nancy-Ann Min DeParle (born December 17, 1956) is the director of the White House Office of Health Reform. under President of the United States Barack Obama, leading his administration's efforts on health care issues. She served as the director of the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA) from 1997 to 2000, administering the Medicare program for the Clinton administration, and before then worked at the Office of Management and Budget.

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Education and personal life

DeParle was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and raised in Rockwood, Tennessee, where she graduated from Rockwood High School. Her mother died of lung cancer when Nancy-Ann was 17.

She attended the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, where her major was history and her senior thesis was entitled "Uncle Sam, Hirohito, and Resegregation: The Tule Lake Segregation Center, 1943-1946." She was awarded a B.A. degree with highest honors and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and selected as a Phi Kappa Phi scholar.

After graduating from Tennessee she enrolled in Harvard Law School, but interrupted her studies there when she was awarded a Rhodes scholarship. As a Rhodes scholar, she went to Balliol College of Oxford University , receiving a B.A. from Oxford in 1981.

She is married to Jason DeParle, a reporter for The New York Times.

She has Chinese ancestry.

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Career

DeParle was a partner at the law firm of Bass, Berry & Sims in Nashville before serving as commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Human Services in the cabinet of Governor Ned McWherter from 1987 to 1989.

DeParle has also served as a trustee at the nonprofit Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, a research fellow at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and a fellow at the Wharton School of Business. She has also been a Commissioner on the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC).

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Corporate connections

DeParle has drawn criticism for her lucrative service on corporate boards after her tenure in the Clinton administration. Msnbc.com reported that she was paid more than $6 million, and served as a director of half a dozen companies that faced federal investigations, whistleblower lawsuits and other regulatory actions. Many of these companies have a stake in the health care reform that she is leading.

She served as a director of Accredo Health Inc., Boston Scientific, Cerner Corp., DaVita, Guidant, Medco Health Solutions, Speciality Laboratories, and Triad Hospitals. She was a managing director of CCMP Capital.

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