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Robert Derzon

A resident of Mill Valley, California, Derzon died of swine flu at age 78 on June 17, 2009, while visiting a friend in Orangeville, Ontario.

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President of the United States Jimmy Carter appointed Derzon to serve as the first head of the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA, later called the CMS), an agency created in March 1977 with the responsibility for overseeing both Medicare, which provides health insurance for those over age 65, and Medicaid, which provides health insurance for the poor.

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Robert Alan Derzon (December 30, 1930 – June 17, 2009) was an American health care professional who served as the first director of the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA), the arm of the US federal government responsible for administering Medicare and Medicaid.

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As part of a series of recommendations to United States Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare Joseph A. Califano, Jr. sent in June 1977, Derzon supported the nationwide implementation of living will laws that had been enacted in California, suggesting that Federal aid be withheld to states that did not pass such laws.

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