President-elect Joe Biden has tapped California Attorney General Xavier Becerra to lead the Department of Health and Human Services and named the top members of his administration’s health care team that will tackle the coronavirus pandemic when he takes office in January.
Along with Becerra, Biden on Monday nominated Dr. Vivek Murthy as surgeon general, Dr. Rochelle Walensky as the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith to lead the COVID-19 equity task force.
Dr. Anthony Fauci will be Biden’s chief adviser on the coronavirus and will also continue to serve as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
Jeff Zients was selected to be the coordinator of the COVID-19 Response and counselor to the president, and Natalie Quillian, a former Obama White House and Pentagon adviser, will be the deputy coordinator of the COVID-19 Response.
Becerra, a fierce defender of the Affordable Care Act, would be the first Latino to lead HHS if he’s confirmed by the Senate.
As California’s attorney general, the 62-year-old has led the effort of Democratic states defending Obamacare from the Trump administration in a Supreme Court case that is expected to be decided next year.
Becerra served 12-terms in the House of Representatives, where he played a vital role helping to pass the Affordable Care Act through Congress.Much of his motivation, he
said at the time, was the high number of his Southern California uninsured constituents.
Murthy served as the surgeon general in the Obama administration from 2014 to 2017 and helped lead the response to the Ebola and Zika viruses and the opioid crisis. A physician, he has been the co-chair of Biden’s coronavirus advisory board during the transition.
Walensky is currently the chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital and a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. She is the former chair of the Office of AIDS Research Advisory Council at the National Institutes of Health and was an adviser to the World Health Organization and the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS.
Nunez-Smith is an associate professor of medicine, public health and management and associate dean for health equity research at Yale School of Medicine. She is also a co-chair of the president-election coronavirus advisory board.
Zients was the director of the National Economic Council, acting director and deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget, and the first Chief Performance Officer of the United States in the Obama administration. He is the co-chair of the Biden transition.
Quillian is a former White House and Pentagon senior adviser. She was also the deputy campaign manager for Biden’s presidential bid.