John Baird

Dr. Baird is a field state medical officer for the North Dakota Department of Health, where he supervises the State Planning Grant. He also is local health officer for Fargo Cass Public Health and is the Cass County coroner. His undergraduate degree is in Electrical Engineering. He attended the University of North Dakota School of Medicine, and received his M.D. degree from Washington University in St. Louis. After completing his family medicine residency and practicing for 10 years, Dr. Baird joined the Fargo Family Practice Residency as a faculty member and ultimately as residency director. He studied for an M.P.H. degree at the University of Minnesota and four years ago moved into his current carrier in public health practice. He is a clinical professor of Family Medicine for the UND School of Medicine.

E. Richard Brown

E. Richard Brown is the director of the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, which he founded in 1994, and professor in the Department of Health Services and the Department of Community Health Sciences in the UCLA School of Public Health. His research focuses on health insurance coverage, the lack of coverage, and the effects on access of public policies and economic and market conditions. He is the principal investigator of the California Health Interview Survey (CHIS), one of the nation's largest ongoing health surveys. Dr. Brown has been extensively involved in the analysis and development of public policies, with particular emphasis on health care reform. He served as a full-time senior consultant to the President's Task Force on National Health Care Reform, for which he co-chaired the work group on coverage for low-income families and individuals. He has served as health policy adviser to two members of the United States Senate, where he was a Senate Fellow and developed major health care reform legislative proposals. He served as health policy adviser to the Presidential campaigns of Senator Bob Kerrey, then-Governor Bill Clinton, the late Senator Paul Wellstone, and Senator Bill Bradley. Dr. Brown also has developed bills in the California Legislature and advised legislative leaders on a variety of health policy issues. He has presented invited testimony to numerous committees in both houses of the U.S. Congress and the California Legislature, and has provided consultation to many private, state, federal, and international agencies. He has served on a number of study committees of the Institute of Medicine and the National Research Council of the National Academy of Science. He was president of the American Public Health Association in 1996. In 2003, APHA awarded him the Sedgwick Memorial Medal for distinguished service and advancement of public health knowledge and practice. He received his PhD in sociology of education from the University of California, Berkeley.

Victoria Burgess

Victoria Burgess is a health policy analyst at the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation. Founded in 1932, the Taxpayers Foundation is widely recognized as the state's premier public policy organization dealing with state spending, tax and economic policies. The Foundation's record of high quality research and non-partisan analysis has earned the organization broad credibility on Beacon Hill and across the Commonwealth. Over the past decade, the Foundation has won nine prestigious national awards for its work on a wide array of topics, including health care, business costs, capital spending, state finances, public transportation, and state government reform.

Ms. Burgess was the lead author of the Foundation's widely cited 2005 report, Health Care Reform: Expanding Access without Sacrificing Jobs, and worked closely with both the state Legislature and administration on the final legislation. Before moving to the United States, Ms. Burgess worked extensively in the United Kingdoms 's private sector, most recently in the science and technology market. She holds degrees from Cambridge University and the Heller School for Social Policy and Management.

Alice Burton

Alice Burton is vice president at AcademyHealth, where she leads The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's State Coverage Initiatives (SCI) program and AcademyHealth's work with states. She works with state policy leaders to develop strategies to improve insurance coverage and has participated in numerous taskforces on the uninsured—both as a member and an advisor. She contributes regularly to publications for states on health coverage. Previously, Ms. Burton was the director of the planning administration at the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. In that role, she was responsible for developing policy initiatives for the Maryland Medicaid program, the Maryland Children's Health Insurance program and other health care financing programs. She developed and oversaw the HealthChoice Evaluation, the state's first comprehensive evaluation of its Medicaid managed care program and worked to implement recommendations coming out of that report. She also served a leader for Maryland 's Health Resources and Services Administration Planning Grant on the uninsured. Ms. Burton is a graduate of the University of Maryland, College Park, and holds a master's degree in health policy from the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Deborah Chollet

Deborah Chollet is a senior fellow at Mathematica Policy Research in Washington, D.C. where she conducts and manages research on health insurance markets, state health care reforms, employee and retiree health benefits, Medicare, and Medigap insurance for state and federal government clients and foundations. She serves as a senior advisor to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's State Coverage Initiatives program and regularly provides technical assistance to states interesting in eincreasing the purchase of individual and small-group insurance, stabilizing health care markets, and linking private and public sources of coverage. She has convened meetings between senior state officials and technical experts to explore issues ranging from the modeling of state health insurance programs, to the implications of hospital uncompensated care and bad debt, to reinsurance and competition in the insurance market. Dr. Chollet has provided invited testimony on the uninsured, health insurance financing and regulation, Medigap insurance, and employee and retiree health benefits to numerous Congressional and state legislative committees. Prior to joining Mathematica, she was a vice president at AcademyHealth and associate professor and director of the Center for Risk Management and Insurance Research at Georgia State University in Atlanta. She holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Syracuse University.

John Colmers

John M. Colmers is a senior program officer for the Milbank Memorial Fund. The New York-based Milbank Memorial Fund is an endowed national foundation that provides nonpartisan analysis, study, research, and communication on significant issues in health policy. Prior to joining the Fund, Mr. Colmers spent 19 years in Maryland State government where he held various positions, including executive director of the Maryland Health Care Commission (MHCC) and the Health Services Cost Review Commission, the agency overseeing Maryland's all-payer hospital rate setting system. Mr. Colmers has a B.S. from the Johns Hopkins University and an M.P.H. from The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He is a contributing editor of the American Journal of Public Health. He is a director of CareFirst Blue Cross Blue Shield and is the chairman of its affiliate, CareFirst of Maryland, Inc. He is also a member of the Board of Academy Health. While in state government, he served as chair of the steering committee of the Reforming States Group, a bipartisan group of executive and legislative leaders.

Pamela S. Dickson

Pamela S. Dickson is the deputy director for the Health Care Group and the interim team leader for the Human Capital Portfolio at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Previously she was team leader for both the Disparities and Coverage Teams. Her program activities since joining the Foundation in 1997 have focused on increasing access and quality of care for all Americans with a particular emphasis on reducing racial and ethnic disparities. Before joining the Foundation, Dickson held several senior positions at the New Jersey Department of Health. As assistant commissioner from 1988 through 1994, she supervised the all-payer hospital rate-setting system and the health planning program. As director of health care reform initiatives, she coordinated efforts among the governor's office, the Department of Health, the Department of Human Services and the Department of Insurance to implement New Jersey 's 1993 Health Care and Insurance Reform Legislation. Dickson has held positions as a member of the board of directors of the National Association of Health Data Organizations and of the Access for the Uninsured Steering Committee of the National Academy for State Health Policy. She earned an M.B.A. in health care administration from the Wharton School of Business in Philadelphia and a B.S. in education from Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pa.

Catherine M. Dunham

Catherine M. Dunham, Ed.D. is currently a national program director for the Community Health Leadership Program supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. She also launched The Access Project, an initiative of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in collaboration with the Heller Graduate School at Brandeis University, to assist community coalitions across the country who are working to improve access to care and coverage for people without health insurance. From 1984-1991 she was the chief health and human services policy advisor to Governor Michael S. Dukakis of Massachusetts. Prior to that, Dr. Dunham was the executive director of the Massachusetts Council of Human Service Providers. She received her Masters in Education and her Doctorate in Social Analysis in Education from Clark University, Worcester, Massachusetts. She has faculty appointments at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and Brandeis University.

Deborah Faulkner

Deb Faulkner is a consultant to Rhode Island 's Office of the Health Insurance Commissioner. Ms. Faulkner serves as project lead for the Affordable Health Insurance Initiative for the State of Rhode Island. This initiative is focused on stabilizing the market for individual and small business health insurance in Rhode Island. Prior to leading the Affordable Health Insurance initiative, Ms. Faulkner was an independent consultant working on special projects for a variety of health plans. Earlier in her career, she was the assistant vice president of Strategy and Business Planning for Tufts Health Plan in Massachusetts. Prior to that, Ms. Faulkner worked for Mercer Management Consulting in Washington, D.C. Ms. Faulkner has an undergraduate degree in economics from Dartmouth College, and a master's degree in public policy from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

Amanda Folsom

Amanda Folsom is a Senior Associate at AcademyHealth. She works on several projects, including the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) Knowledge Transfer program, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's State Coverage Initiatives (SCI) program, and a number of international initiatives. Ms. Folsom serves as the AcademyHealth project manager for the AHRQ Quality-Based Purchasing Knowledge Transfer project. Prior to joining AcademyHealth in February 2006, Ms. Folsom was Deputy Director for Program Evaluation and Legislation in the Maryland Medicaid program. While in Maryland Medicaid, she led several program design and implementation efforts, including the design and implementation of a Medicaid Buy-In for Employed Persons with Disabilities and the development of a proposal to implement a managed long-term care pilot program. Ms. Folsom oversaw state and federal legislative activities affecting Medicaid, and led a number of evaluation and performance measurement projects, including Maryland 's annual evaluation of its Medicaid managed care program. Prior to joining Maryland Medicaid in 2001, Ms. Folsom worked as a project associate at the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured, as a research associate with the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and as a community health volunteer with the U.S. Peace Corps in Burkina Faso, West Africa. Ms. Folsom is a graduate of the University of Virginia, and holds an M.P.H. degree from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

John Folkemer

John Folkemer, vice president, recently joined The Lewin Group after more than 25 years with the Maryland Medicaid program and a year with the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). He was the Maryland State Medicaid Director for over two years, and the Deputy Secretary for Health Care Financing. In his prior role as director of planning, policy analysis, program development, budget, and finance, Mr. Folkemer held major responsibilities for the implementation of several waivers and demonstrations, including Maryland 's section 1115 Medicaid managed care reform demonstration (HealthChoice), under which 80 percent of the Medicaid population was enrolled in managed care organizations. He had primary responsibility for developing what is probably the most sophisticated risk-adjusted Medicaid capitation rate methodology in the country. He also oversaw a comprehensive evaluation of the HealthChoice program. Mr. Folkemer has given numerous presentations to State and national audiences on managed care and other Medicaid-related topics. As the director of the Division of Benefits, Eligibility and Managed Care at CMS, Mr. Folkemer was responsible for interpreting Medicaid benefit and eligibility policies, and approving State Plan Amendments. The Division also developed Medicaid managed care policy and approved State managed care waivers. Mr. Folkemer has an M.S.W. degree from the University of Maryland and an M.P.A. degree from the University of Baltimore.

Isabel Friedenzohn

Isabel Friedenzohn is a senior associate at AcademyHealth where she works primarily on The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's State Coverage Initiatives (SCI) program. Her responsibilities include providing technical assistance to state policymakers on health policy reform to expand and maintain health insurance coverage; disseminating state models of expansion through the program's written products; convening workshops and small group consultations for policymakers; and assisting in the development of technical assistance documents. Ms. Friedenzohn joined AcademyHealth in October 2001 after receiving her M.P.H. degree from the University of Michigan School of Public Health. Prior to attending graduate school, she worked for the VA Health Services Research & Development in Ann Arbor, MI, as a research health science specialist. Most recently, she was a consultant at Mercy International Health Services, where she collaborated on two projects assessing Human Resources and Health Services Management issues. During her graduate studies, Isabel also worked as an international health intern in the Office of International and Refugee Health at the DHHS.

W. David Helms

Dr. Helms is president and CEO of AcademyHealth, the professional society for the fields of health services research and health policy. AcademyHealth's programs are dedicated to stimulating the development, understanding, and use of the best available health services research and health policy information by public and private decision makers. In addition, Dr. Helms is as president and CEO of the Coalition for Health Services Research, AcademyHealth's advocacy arm. Dr. Helms serves as senior advisor to two AcademyHealth national programs sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF): The Health Care Financing & Organization Program, which provides funding for investigator-initiated research on health care financing; and, the State Coverage Initiatives Program which provides support to states to address pressing health coverage and access problems. He also serves as a senior consultant for AcademyHealth's contract with the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) for knowledge transfer and application initiatives. Dr. Helms is frequently invited to facilitate consensus processes on health policy issues and on the development of research agendas. He also serves on a number of health related boards and advisory committees. Prior to his current position, Dr. Helms founded and was president of the Alpha Center a non-partisan, non-profit health policy center that provided expert technical assistance, objective analysis and research, and comprehensive education and facilitation services. Dr. Helms received his doctorate in public administration and economics in 1979 from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University.

John Holahan

Dr. Holahan is director of the Health Policy Research Center at The Urban Institute. He has managed numerous health research projects in the last 25 years and authored many books and papers on health policy. Much of his work has focused on the Medicaid program, as well as state health policy more broadly, and issues of federalism and health. These include analyses of the recent growth in Medicaid expenditures, variations across states in Medicaid expenditures, and the implications of block grants and expenditures on dual eligibles and on high cost beneficiaries, and changes in matching formulas on states. He has also published research on the reasons for the growth in the uninsured over the past decade and on the effects of proposals to expand health insurance coverage on the number of uninsured and the cost to federal and state governments. He recently directed a project that designed options for health reforms, including cost estimates, in the state of Massachusetts. Other research interests include health system reform, managed care, physician payment, and hospital cost containment.

Kristin Jones

Kristin Jones is chief of staff to Michael E. Busch, speaker of the House of Delegates, Maryland General Assembly, where she focuses on a number of policy and budgetary issues including education and health care. Prior to serving on the Speaker's legislative staff, Ms. Jones spent four and a half years as a senior policy analyst with the Maryland Department of Legislative Services. In that capacity, she served as counsel to the House Economic Matters Committee in the Maryland General Assembly and handled legislation on a variety of issues, including health and insurance generally. Ms. Jones graduated cum laude from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and received her J.D. from the University of Maryland School of Law. She is a member of the Maryland Bar.

Mila Kofman

Mila Kofman is an associate research professor at the Georgetown University Health Policy Institute. She conducts a range of studies on the uninsured and underinsured. Ms. Kofman is a published author whose work includes a report on health insurance scams (published by BNA) and articles on state and federal health insurance reforms in peer review journals. She has testified before the U.S. Senate, the U.S. House of Representatives, and state legislatures and has been an expert witness in civil and criminal cases involving health insurance scams and unauthorized insurance. In 2005, Ms. Kofman was appointed co-editor for the Journal of Insurance Regulation (a peer reviewed journal). Ms. Kofman was appointed to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) Consumer Participation Board of Trustees in 2002 for a 2-year term and reappointed in 2004 and 2006. She also serves on the Board of Directors for URAC (a health care accreditation firm). Ms. Kofman was a federal regulator at the U.S. Department of Labor from 1997 to 2001 where she worked with federal and state legislators developing health care initiatives and worked on federal legislation concerning managed care reform, access and association health plans, retiree health, Medicare prescription drug coverage, tax credits, and other proposals affecting private health coverage. Ms. Kofman also developed guidance to implement HIPAA and other federal reforms. In the fall of 2000, she was a special assistant to the Senior Health Care Advisor to the President at the Domestic Policy Council at the White House, assisting with legislative and regulatory health care reform initiatives including the Patient's Bill of Rights, long-term care insurance, nursing home reform, and ERISA reform. In March 2000, Ms. Kofman was honored with the Labor Secretary's Exceptional Achievement Award. Prior to joining the Department of Labor, Ms. Kofman was counsel for Health Policy and Regulation at the Institute for Health Policy Solutions (IHPS). Prior to joining IHPS, Ms. Kofman worked at the NAIC and a private law firm. She holds a law degree from the Georgetown University Law Center and a B.A. degree in Government and Politics from the University of Maryland, College Park.

Senator Jim Leddy

James Leddy is a Vermont state senator, the chair of the Senate Health & Welfare Committee and co-chair of the Health Care Reform Commission. Leddy retired in 2000 as director of the Howard Center for Human Services. Leddy grew up in Vermont and graduated from Rice High School, the University of Ottawa and Barry University in Florida. He has served in the Vermont Senate since 1999, is a Trustee of the University of Vermont and is on the board of the Lake Champlain Regional Chamber of Commerce.

Laurie Lee

Laurie Lee is director, State Health Planning, for the Department of Finance and Administration for the State of Tennessee. The Division of State Health Planning is responsible for the development of a statewide health plan to guide the health care programs administered or funded by the State through its departments, agencies or programs. Ms. Lee has 25 years experience in health services planning, strategy, management and informatics, focused on offering solutions to help improve health care quality and build sustainable health care delivery systems. Her primary focus is on translating the emerging healthcare dynamics and evolving marketplace needs into solutions that help improve the healthcare delivery system. Prior to joining the State in March of 2005, Ms. Lee was vice president for Medstat's Marketing and Planning products and manager of Medstat's Franklin, TN office. Prior to joining Medstat, Ms. Lee was associate vice president with Quorum Health Resources and she served as director of market development for Saint Thomas Hospital, a 571-bed Ascension hospital in Nashville, TN. Ms. Lee holds a B.A. and M.H.A. from Duke University.

Linda LeClair

Linda LeClair is director of the Bureau of Medicaid Eligibility Operations and Family Health Plus in the Division of Consumer and Local District Relations, Office of Medicaid Management, New York State Department of Health. She has served in this position for nearly 8 years. Before joining the Department of Health, she worked in the New York State Division of the Budget, where she handled federal relations involving Medicaid, and eligibility-related aspects of the state Medicaid budget. She has contributed to such legislation as the State Children's Health Insurance Program, state welfare reform and Medicaid managed care. She holds a Bachelor's degree from the University of Iowa and a Master's degree from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Christy Lemak

Dr. Lemak is an associate professor and MHA Program Director of the Univeristy of Florida's Department of Health Services Research, Management and Policy. Dr. Lemak received her Ph.D. in Health Services Organization and Policy from the University of Michigan, holds M.H.A. and M.B.A. degrees from the University of Missouri, and a B.S. degree from the University of Illinois.She was named the Michael O. and Barbara Bice Term Professor in Health Services Research, Management and Policy in 2005. Her primary areas of teaching include health care management and strategic management of health care organizations. Dr. Lemak was awarded the College's Faculty Leadership Award in 2005, its Teaching Excellence Award in 2001, and the Department's teaching award in 2003. Her research focuses on various aspects of organizations that serve vulnerable populations. She currently directs the independent evaluation of two community collaborations to improve access for the uninsured (HRSA HCAP projects in Miami-Dade County and Palm Beach County, FL ). Dr. Lemak also studied two Medicaid demonstration projects in Florida : a provider service network and a program for minority physician networks. Dr. Lemak currently serves as an investigator in a project evaluating Medicaid Reform in Florida. She leads one of the three major evaluation subprojects, Organizational Analyses, which focuses on (1) reform implementation process, (2) reform health plans, and (3) choice counseling organization and process. She is a consultant to a NIDA-funded national study of managed care in substance abuse treatment organizations. She has published in various journals, including Health Services Research, Medical Care, Medical Care Research and Review, Health Care Management Review, and Journal of Health and Social Behavior. Dr. Lemak serves as an elected member of the UF Faculty Senate, on the board of a local indigent health care clinic, and in leadership positions in the Academy of Management Health Care Management Division.

Amy Lischko

Ms. Lischko has more than 15 years of experience working for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, in the Department of Public Health, the Division of Health Care Finance and Policy and the Executive Office of Health and Human Services. She has a Master's degree in Health Policy and Management and extensive experience in health services research, policy analysis, and program evaluation. Ms. Lischko has managed numerous health research and policy projects for the state of Massachusetts and has overseen various activities including the state's surveys of health insurance status, employer insurance, evaluations of health care reform in Massachusetts, and the state's HRSA grants to evaluate options for expanding health insurance coverage. She has played a very active role in the current administration's health care reform agenda including helping to draft the governor's legislation and launching the state's first consumer website containing comparative information on the costs and quality of providers in Massachusetts. She is currently pursuing a doctorate degree in health services at Boston University on a part-time basis.

Lorena Madrid

Lorena Madrid has 15 years of experience working in the clinic, health insurance, community based organization and public health setting.  She holds an Environmental Studies B.A. Degree from the University of California-Santa Cruz.  She has developed and implemented health education projects in Thailand and Santa Clara County for Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention, HIV/STI, Nutrition, Diabetes, and Oral Health.  As part of her work with Santa Clara Family Health Plan she directs the Outreach and Family Resource Center Services.  She also has spearheaded an effort in Santa Clara County to organize over 50 Community Promotores and the development of Promotor Training Academy with Promotores Unidos of Santa Clara County.

Enrique Martinez-Vidal

Enrique Martinez-Vidal joined AcademyHealth in February 2005 as the deputy director of The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's State Coverage Initiatives (SCI) program which works with state policy leaders to develop strategies to improve insurance coverage. He also is currently the project director under a contract with the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) to provide an environmental scan of state-level quality initiatives and to help AHRQ develop a strategy to partner with states regarding quality improvement. Previously, Mr. Martinez-Vidal was the deputy director for performance and benefits at the Maryland Health Care Commission, an independent state agency, where he was responsible for the oversight of Maryland's small group insurance market reforms; the annual evaluation of Maryland's mandated health insurance benefits; the collection and public dissemination of quality and performance information for hospitals, nursing homes and health plans; providing primary assistance on all legislative issues; and working on numerous other projects related to the affordability of health care, quality improvement, and patient safety. He also served as co-director of Maryland 's Health Resources and Services Administration State Planning Grant on the uninsured. Mr. Martinez-Vidal was formerly a policy analyst with the Maryland Department of Legislative Services. During that time, he staffed the House Economic Matters Committee and was involved with a number of health-care related issues. He has a B.A. in political science and international studies from Dickinson College and a master's degree in public policy from Georgetown University.

Joe Musgrove

Joe Musgrove has over 35 years experience in the life and health insurance industry. He is currently the director of the Life and Health Division of the Arkansas Insurance Department. In this capacity, he is a member of the NAIC Speed-to-Market Task Force, NAIC Life and Health Actuarial Task Force, the NAIC Senior Issues Task Force, and the NAIC Interstate Compact National Standards Workgroups for Life Insurance, Annuities, Disability Income and Long Term Care. He represents Commissioner Bowman on the State and Public School Life and Health Insurance Board. He serves on the Interagency Coordinating Council for Early Childhood Intervention. Prior to returning to the Insurance Department in 2001, Mr. Musgrove spent 19 years in a private insurance consulting practice, developing life and health insurance products, premium rates, reserves and nonforfeiture values and establishing automated computer systems for the administration of life and health insurance policies. He served as the Life and Health Actuary for the Arkansas Insurance Department from 1978 – 1982. From 1968 – 1978 Mr. Musgrove worked in the insurance industry both as a computer programmer and actuary in Texas, Connecticut, Tennessee and Iowa. He taught math and science for four years in the Texas public school system and served in the U. S. Navy.

Ed Neuschler

Ed Neuschler, Senior Program Officer at the Institute for Health Policy Solutions (IHPS), has more than 30 years of experience in health care policy at the national level, largely related to health insurance issues. IHPS is an independent, non-partisan, not-for-profit organization that develops and analyzes coverage approaches at the state and national levels. The Institute's key interests include development of complementary public and private financing roles to cover uninsured workers and families, and development of associated health insurance exchange constructs. In his previous position as senior director for Policy and Research at the National Institute for Health Care Management (NIHCM), Mr. Neuschler was responsible for public policy research, analysis and educational activities regarding private health insurance benefit and care management issues. Prior to NIHCM, he was vice president for Policy Development and Research at the Health Insurance Association of America, where he and his staff provided analytical, research and statistical support, focusing on issues related to private insurance market reform and coverage expansions for uninsured workers. Mr. Neuschler began his analytic career with the U.S. Health Care Financing Administration, where he focused on Medicaid and related issues regarding coverage of low-income populations and served for several years as director of Medicaid and Long-Term Care Policy in HCFA's Office of Legislation and Policy. Subsequently, he served as senior fellow in Health Policy Studies with the National Governors' Association, where in addition to analytic functions related to health insurance coverage and cost issues, he convened conferences and directed technical assistance on managed care purchasing issues. Mr. Neuschler holds a Masters Degree in Public Policy from the University of California at Berkeley.

Rachel Police is a graduate student in the Department of Health Management & Policy at the Michigan School of Public Health and is working at AcademyHealth as part of an academic internship program. Prior to attending graduate school, Rachel worked as a program associate and fundraiser at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts and the Harvard University Development Office. She received her B.A. in 2000 from the University of Pennsylvania in English with a minor in Biology.

Tony Rodgers has more than 25 years of healthcare executive management experience in both hospital systems and health plans. He currently is director of the Arizona Medicaid Program, known as the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (AHCCCS). As director, Mr. Rodgers reports to the Governor and is responsible for providing health coverage for one million Arizonans. The agency administers multiple sources of funding and provides oversight and compliance to health care providers that focus on quality of care and fiscal accountability. Director Rodgers currently holds visiting professor appointments at Arizona State University, at the W.P Carey School of Business and at University of California – Los Angeles, School of Public Health.

Gerard Russo is an associate professor at the University of Hawaii, Department of Economics and an adjunct fellow at the East-West Center, Research Program, Population and Health Studies. His research interests include the economics of smoking, health insurance, and the economics of HIV/AIDS screening and prevention. Dr. Russo has been a member of the economics faculty at the University of Hawaii since 1987 where he specializes in health economics, health policy and microeconomic theory. Concurrent with his University of Hawaii position, Dr. Russo has been affiliated with the East-West Center since 1989 and has traveled extensively in Asia conducting funded research and training in Indonesia, Pakistan, the Philippines, Taiwan and Thailand. Dr. Russo was awarded a Ph.D. degree in economics from Northwestern University, after previously earning M.A. and B.A. degrees in economics from the University of Delaware and George Washington University, respectively. Since 2002, he has led a team of University of Hawaii researchers analyzing policies to expand health insurance coverage for Hawaii 's uninsured population in support of the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration, State Planning Grant to the Hawaii State Department of Health. His work on the HRSA SPG is conducted in collaboration with the Hawaii State Department of Health, the Hawaii Institute of Public Affairs—Hawaii Uninsured Project, and the Hawaii Health Information Corporation.

Kevin Ryan serves as the Associate Director for Policy and Projects at Arkansas Center for Health Improvement (ACHI). He is the Project Director of the Arkansas State Health Insurance Expansion Initiative, a $2.5 million-grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration to study mechanisms for addressing the status of the uninsured in Arkansas and the State Coverage Initiative, a $1.5 million-grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to design and implement mechanisms to expand health insurance coverage and promote stabilization of the health care marketplace. Mr. Ryan is a member of the faculty of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) College of Public Health with appointment as Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management. Mr. Ryan graduated with High Honors from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock (UALR) William H. Bowen School of Law, where he was a member of the Law Review. He has a Master of Arts in Health Services Management from Webster University, St. Louis, Missouri. Clinical degrees include an Associate of Science in Registered Nursing from UALR and a Bachelor of Science in Radiologic Technology from UAMS.

Kathleen Thiede Call is an associate professor at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health and investigator at the State Health Access Data Assistance Center (SHADAC) funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which assists other states in monitoring rates of coverage and using data to inform policy and improve access.  Her research falls in to two related areas. The first is access to health insurance coverage and health care services among vulnerable populations: low-income, young, elderly, racial and ethnic communities, chronically ill and rural populations. Within that domain, she has helped create a survey of health insurance coverage for use by states and has developed a stream of research concerning the complexities of measuring health insurance coverage. The second area of research Dr. Call is developing is community-based participatory research focusing on barriers to health care.

Kate VandenBroek is senior project manager in the Division of Medicaid, Idaho Department of Health and Welfare, and is currently working to implement Idaho 's Medicaid reform initiative. Prior to joining Idaho Medicaid, Kate was a 2004-2005 Packer Policy Fellow in Canberra, Australia, where she studied regulation of private health insurance in the Australian Department of Health and Ageing. Prior to that, Kate was the executive director of the Idaho State Planning Grant on the Uninsured, in which capacity she helped to design an S-CHIP expansion and a new premium assistance program. Kate has a B.A. from Barnard College, Columbia University, and an M.B.A from the University of Washington. Kate was named a Modern Healthcare "Up & Comer" in 2005.

Vicki currently directs the federally funded State Planning Grant project on access to adequate and affordable health insurance—providing resources for state-level planning, policy and data analysis on Washington 's uninsured population and barriers to accessing coverage. Her career in public service spans close to 35 years; the majority of time focused on health care research, policy, and purchasing. Prior to her current position, she was assistant administrator of Health Policy, Research and Development for the Washington State Health Care Authority, a large public purchaser of health benefits covering nearly 500,000 lives. Her background also includes a variety of positions at the Washington State Department of Health, Washington State Hospital Commission, the Washington State Department of Social and Health Services, and the University of Washington, Department of Psychology. In addition, she and her husband own and run Arcadia Point Seafood (a shellfish farming business), giving her first-hand experience regarding the health insurance issues of a small employer. She received her Ph.D. in Educational Psychology (Measurement and Statistics), University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, 1983.