White House Adds Disability Advocate to Long-Term Care Commission

President Obama has named Henry Claypool, Executive Vice-President of the American Association of People with Disabilities, as a member of the national Commission on Long-Term Care, giving disability advocates a voice on the panel that will recommend changes to the nation's long-term care system.

Congress established the Commission on Long-Term Care after eliminating the CLASS Act during contentious negotiations over the deal to avert the fiscal cliff. The CLASS Act would have established a national long-term care insurance program to help people with disabilities and the elderly pay for the cost of long-term care, but members of Congress were concerned that the program was not financial viable. The Commission on Long-Term Care is tasked with filling the void left by the repeal of the CLASS Act by creating a group to come up with a proposal for a "comprehensive, coordinated and high-quality" long-term care system. The Commission has six months to formulate its plan, which the President and Congress would have to implement through additional legislation.

Mr. Claypool was one of President Obama's three choices for the Commission, joining Julian Harris, MD, the Massachusetts Medicaid director and Carol Raphael, vice chair of the AARP board of directors. Congressional leaders from both parties chose the other 12 members of the Commission, who represent a broad range of interests including long-term care workers, charities and nursing home operators. Mr. Claypool, who was paralyzed in a skiing accident, while in college, previously worked for the Department of Health and Human Services where he established the Administration for Community Living.

To read more about the President's appointees, click here.

Below are the other 12 Commission members:

Democratic picks:

Javaid Anwar, a Nevada physician who served as chair of Nevadas Committee on Access to Health Care

Laphonza Butler, president of the United Long-Term Care Workers Union

Dr. Bruce Chernof, President of the SCAN Foundation, a charity working to improve health care for seniors

Judy Feder, a professor at the Georgetown Public Policy Institute who was a staff director of the 1989-90 Pepper Commission and a senior health aide in the Clinton administration

Judith Stein, founder and executive director of the Center for Medicare Advocacy.

George Vradenburg, a philanthropist and founder of USAgainstAlzheimers

Republican picks:

Judith Brachman, a former director of the Ohio Department of Aging who chairs the Jewish Federation of North Americas Aging and Family Caregiving Committee

Bruce Greenstein Louisianas Secretary of Health and Hospitals

Stephen Guillard, a nursing home executive who has been CEO of HCR ManorCare and was chairman of a trade group that represents large for-profit nursing home companies

Neil Pruitt, chairman and CEO of UHS-Pruitt Corporation, a long-term care provider, and board chair of The American Health Care Association, the largest trade group representing nursing homes and other senior care providers

Grace-Marie Turner, founder and president of the Galen Institute, a research organization that promotes free-market ideas for health reform

Mark Warshawsky, a pension expert who was a Treasury official under President George W. Bush