Neera Tanden
Director, U.S. Domestic Policy Council
Neera Tanden was born in September 1970 in Bedford, Massachusetts. She earned an undergraduate degree from the University of California, Los Angeles, and received her Juris Doctor from Yale Law School.
She began her career in domestic policy at a think tank on Capitol Hill. She served as legislative director for Senator Hillary Clinton. She later became a senior adviser to the Secretary of Health and Human Services during President Obama’s administration. She worked as vice president for domestic policy at the Center for American Progress and later became that organization’s president and CEO.
She has served President Biden’s administration as White House staff secretary and as a senior adviser to the president for health care policy and the U.S. Digital Service. In May 2023, she was named Director of the Domestic Policy Council.
She is married to Ben Edwards, and they have two children.
In the News…
Lawsuits have been filed challenging the role of Medicare in negotiating drug prices. White House Domestic Policy Council Director Neera Tanden said she is convinced that the program under the Inflation Reduction Act will be upheld in court.
“There is nothing in the Constitution that stops Medicare from negotiating drug prices,” she said. “We really, we feel very strongly about our ability to win these lawsuits because this is just a basic principle.”
“Everybody negotiates prices,” Director Tanden added. “What the pharmaceutical companies are doing are they’re going to the courts to ensure that they can charge any price they can get away with, and that is wrong.”
She said she fully expects the program to be expanded, adding 15 or 20 more drugs in the future.
“It’s really important to remember that for medications that aren’t on this list, they may be on future lists,” she said, noting that “prices have been lowered already for insulin.”
Contact this Leader…
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Ms. Neera Tanden
Director, U.S. Domestic Policy Council
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW
Washington, DC 20500
