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President Biden has selected Chiquita Brooks-LaSure to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, filling a major role in his health-care leadership team, according to four people who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the decision. Brooks-LaSure served in the Obama administration as a senior CMS official who helped implement the Affordable Care Act’s coverage expansion and insurance-market reforms. She also worked on Capitol Hill as a Democratic staff member for the House Ways and Means Committee, building ties with then-Rep. Xavier Becerra, Biden’s choice to lead the Health and Human Services department and who sat on the committee at the time. (Diamond and Goldstein, 2/17)

If confirmed by the Senate, Chiquita Brooks-LaSure would be the first Black woman to head CMS, which has under its umbrella Medicare, Medicaid, children’s health insurance and the Affordable Care Act, better known as “Obamacare.” The programs cover more than 130 million people, from newborns to nursing home residents. Brooks-LaSure has a long track record in government, having held health policy jobs at the White House, in Congress, and at CMS during the Obama administration. Most recently she led the Biden transition’s “landing team” for the Department of Health and Human Services, laying the groundwork for the new administration. Before her return to government service, Brooks-LaSure was a managing director at the Manatt Health consultancy. (Alonso-Zaldivar, 2/18)

Brooks-LaSure would inherit those lawsuits, most notably a Supreme Court case set to be argued in March challenging the agency’s new policy of denying health coverage to unemployed Medicaid beneficiaries. The Supreme Court is still scheduled to hear the case on March 29, although the Biden administration took action last week to begin reversing the policy, which could moot the lawsuit before it’s argued. That’s far from the agency’s only lawsuit: CMS is currently facing two other challenges from hospitals alone, and is also fending off lawsuits from drug makers and seniors’ groups. (Florko and Facher, 2/17)

In other Medicare news —

An oncologist group has lost a bid to reinstate its legal challenge to the ongoing, automatic 2% cut in Medicare reimbursement that began in 2013 for intravenous cancer treatments and other drugs administered by healthcare providers. Circuit Judge Gregory Katsas, writing on behalf of a unanimous panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, said neither the Balanced Budget Act, which caused the cut, nor federal Medicare statutes gave federal courts jurisdiction over the Community Oncology Alliance Inc’s lawsuit. (Pierson, 2/16)

HHS needs to overhaul its approach to value-based payment to ensure widespread practice transformation and rein in Medicare spending, according to a report by the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics at the University of Pennsylvania released Wednesday. Experts said the agency needs a new strategy because providers and payers have been too slow to adopt value-based payment, especially arrangements that require providers to take on significant financial risk. In addition, most existing initiatives don't systematically lower healthcare spending or improve quality. According to the report, CMS must develop a clear vision for the future of value-based payment, simplify and align its models across payers and mandate participation in advanced payment models whenever possible. The agency should also make it easier for providers to take part in voluntary models, commit to longer-term contracts and make fee-for-service reimbursement less attractive for providers when mandatory participation isn't possible. (Brady, 2/17)