COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) - South Carolina’s Medicaid director is leaving state government after more than six years, Gov. Henry McMaster announced Thursday.
The Republican governor said Christian Soura has been a “tremendous asset” to the Department of Health and Human Services and the entire state. Soura’s resignation takes effect April 7.
“His strong leadership and commitment to the agency’s mission has improved the lives of South Carolinians,” he said in a release.
Both the governor’s office and the agency said it was Soura’s decision to leave to pursue opportunities in the private sector. His salary heading the Cabinet agency is nearly $160,000.
Gov. Nikki Haley brought Soura to South Carolina when she took office in January 2011. He was previously secretary of administration for former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, a Democrat.
Soura helped lead Haley’s efforts for a government restructuring bill, signed into law in 2013, and put together her executive budget proposals.
Haley referred to him as the genius “man behind the curtain.”
She named him director of the state’s Medicaid agency in 2014 to replace Tony Keck, who took a job as senior vice president of Tennessee-based Mountain States Health Alliance.
Medicaid is a joint state-federal program that supplies health care for poor people and those with disabilities.
McMaster appointed a five-person panel to search for Soura’s replacement. Legislators on the panel are GOP Sen. Thomas Alexander of Walhalla and Rep. Murrell Smith of Sumter, chairmen of health care budget-writing panels. Others include South Carolina Hospital Association CEO Thornton Kirby and former Sen. Jim Ritchie, director of the state Alliance of Health Plans.
Meanwhile, deputy director Deirdra Singleton will serve as acting director.
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