Sponsored by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's State Coverage Initiatives Program
Conducted by AcademyHealth

Jeremy J. Alberga

Jeremy Alberga is an Associate at AcademyHealthHealth and primarily works on The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's State Coverage Initiatives (SCI) program. His responsibilities include providing technical assistance to state policymakers on health policy reform, specifically expanding and maintaining 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. Mr. Alberga recently has authored a case study of Wisconsin's BadgerCare program, titled "Wisconsin's BadgerCare Program Offers Innovative Approach for Family Coverage."

Mr. Alberga came to AcademyHealth in April 1999. Before that he worked for a private firm providing research to hospital emergency departments and ambulatory care facilities. Mr. Alberga received his MA in international health from the George Washington University and his BA from McGill University, Montreal.

Cheryl Austein Casnoff

Cheryl Austein Casnoff is currently the Director, Division of Benefits, Coverage and Payment in the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). She is also acting as the Director for the State Children's Health Insurance Program. She was also responsible for designing and implementing the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), a $40 billion program to provide insurance for low-income children. Prior to coming to CMS, Ms. Austein Casnoff was the Director for Public Health Policy in the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE). She also served as a member of the President's Task Force for Health Care Reform. In 1992, she was selected as a Senior Legislative Fellow for health policy and served in the Office of Senator Dave Durenberger. Ms. Austein Casnoff received her Masters of Public Health in Health Services Administration from Yale Medical School, Department of Epidemiology and Public Health and her Bachelor of Arts in Biological Sciences from Northwestern University.

Kate Brewster

Kate Brewster is the Manager of the Employer Contact Unit (ECU) at the Rhode Island Department of Human Services. The ECU is a newly created unit responsible for recruiting and enrolling employers into RIte Share, the state's new premium assistance program. Ms. Brewster is also a part-time instructor for the Case Management Institute at the Rhode Island College School of Social Work.

Prior to her current position, Ms. Brewster was the Assistant Director of the Poverty Institute, a policy advocacy organization promoting economic security for low-income Rhode Islanders. Ms. Brewster was also a Project Manager for the RIte Care Statewide Outreach Project where she trained and coordinated the efforts of 16 community-based outreach workers who were responsible for enrolling uninsured children and families into RIte Care, Rhode Island's Medicaid Managed Care program.

Ms. Brewster has served as an advocate for victims of domestic violence, as a research interviewer for the Medical and Health Research Association of New York City, and as a case manager for several non-profit organizations in Rhode Island. She also completed internships with the RI Campaign to Eliminate Childhood Poverty, the Directorate of Women's Affairs in Antigua, and the Rhode Island Senate Fiscal and Policy Office. Ms. Brewster received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology from the University of Rhode Island in 1994 and a Master of Social Work degree from Rhode Island College in 1998.

Leigh A. Cheatham

Leigh Cheatham was appointed in September of 1998, to the position of Executive Director for the Healthcare Group and Premium Sharing Programs at Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System. During the prior five years Ms. Cheatham was the Deputy Director and Chief Tax Policy Officer with the Arizona Department of Revenue. She had also served in a number of administrative capacities within DOR during the prior sixteen years, serving as the Legislative Liaison for over ten years and also as Manager of Taxpayer Information Services. During her twenty-six years of State service, in addition to the Department of Revenue, she worked for the Arizona Department of Transportation, Motor Vehicle Division, and in the Attorney General's Office, Tax Division.

Ms. Cheatham's extensive knowledge of Arizona State government processes and her experience with the Legislature was instrumental in guiding these two healthcare programs through recent transitions. Premium Sharing will become a permanent state funded program as of October 1, 2001, and Healthcare Group has received continuing legislative financial support to protect the participating health plans while a restructuring of the program is underway.

Deborah Chollet, Ph.D.

Deborah Chollet is a Senior Fellow at Mathematica Policy Research in Washington, D.C., where she leads a number of research projects analyzing private health insurance markets and state and federal health care financing programs. Dr. Chollet also works with AcademyHealthHealth as part of its technical support team for The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's State Coverage Initiatives program, providing technical assistance to states for designing and implementing major reforms that promote access to health care. Before joining Mathematica Policy Research, Dr. Chollet was a Vice President of AcademyHealth (formerly the Alpha Center). Previously, she directed the Center for Risk Management and Insurance Research at Georgia State University, where she also served as an Associate Professor of Risk Management and Insurance. She has been a Senior Research Associate at the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) in Washington, D.C., and has served in federal government as Executive Director of the Advisory Council on Social Security and as a senior health policy researcher in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. She is a founding member of the National Academy of Social Insurance. Dr. Chollet earned a B.S. in Economics at the University of Missouri at St. Louis, and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Economics at the Maxwell School, Syracuse University.

Charles P. Cook

Charles Cook is the Director of Benefit Coordination and Recovery operations for the Massachusetts Division of Medical Assistance. His unit cost avoids or recovers over $1.4 billion annually. Over the last four years, the Massachusetts' Medicaid program has moved from purchasing cost-effective health insurance for otherwise eligible MassHealth members to offering private insurance subsidies as the actual MassHealth benefit for certain income groups. At full implementation, the State estimates that as many as 100,000 new members might become eligible through the Premium Assistance and Insurance Partnership Programs. These two approaches address the fear of crowd-out while maximizing the federal revenue match available through Titles XIX and XXI.

Mr. Cook has worked for the Division of Medical Assistance for the last twenty-eight years. During that time he has become an expert on disability, eligibility, and revenue enhancement issues. Mr. Cook completed his undergraduate work at the University of Massachusetts and pursued graduate work at both the University of Rhode Island and Suffolk University.

Richard Curtis

Richard Curtis, president of the Institute for Health Policy Solutions, an independent not-for-profit founded in early 1992) has an extensive background in health insurance strategies and issues. Areas of expertise include: developing policy approaches and private initiatives that are both in the public interest and viable in the private market, restructuring the health insurance market, designing consumer choice pooled purchasing strategies, and developing approaches to cover uninsured workers and children.

Specific IHPS analysis, development and technical assistance work currently includes helping states design public-private measures to extend job-based coverage to uninsured workers and children, and designing purchasing pools that give small firms' employees choice of competing health plans, and that can facilitate the use of multiple public and private funding sources for job-based coverage of the uninsured. Other projects include policy development and analyses on a broad range of health insurance structures and coverage issues.

Previous positions Mr. Curtis has held include: Director of the Department of Policy Development and Research, Health Insurance Association of America; founding Executive Director, National Academy for State Health Policy; and Director of Health Policy Studies, National Governors' Association (NGA). Other roles have included serving as an expert resource at the U.S. Senate Republican retreat on health care reform (Summer 1993) and earlier (Spring) that year chairing a technical working group for preliminary health system reform work for the White House Task Force. More recent roles have included participation in the (1999 and 2000) Health Sector Assembly of 50 leaders from diverse organizations on coverage of the uninsured. During his tenure at NGA in the 80's he served as Director of the Project on the Medically Indigent for AcademyHealth for State and Local Government and was a contributing editor to Business and Health magazine.

Pamela S. Dickson

Pamela S. Dickson is a Senior Program Officer at The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Her program activities at the Foundation focus on increasing access to care for all Americans with a particular emphasis on reducing racial and ethnic disparities in access to care. Before joining the Foundation, Ms. 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.

Ms. 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 holds an M.B.A. in Health Care Administration from the Wharton School of Business.

Dennis Doderer

Dennis Doderer has been with the New Jersey Medicaid/Family Care Program for 25 years. His management duties have ranged from supervising various field office operations throughout the state to Coordinator of Fiscal Agent Contractors overseeing all claims processing operations. He was instrumental in developing the first state run Medicaid HMO in New Jersey in 1985, The Garden State Health Plan, and managed several of the first Medicaid Managed Care contracts with Commercial HMOs.

In 1989 Mr. Doderer was appointed to a Fiscal Agent Task Force that developed and implemented a new MMIS with Unisys Corporation, which is still in operation today. He was appointed Deputy Assistant Director for beneficiary and provider services in 1995 responsible for Provider Enrollment, Field Operations and Customer Services.

In 1999 Mr. Doderer assumed additional responsibility for the development of the New Jersey Family Care - Premium Support Program and has managed the design, development and implementation of the Program to date.

Jon Gabel

Jon Gabel is the Vice President of Health Systems Studies at the Health Research and Educational Trust. Mr. Gabel is responsible for conducting studies and surveys that track changes in health benefits and the health care delivery system. His clients include research foundations, government agencies, health plans and employers. He formerly was Director of the Center for Survey Research for KPMG Peat Marwick LLP. Mr. Gabel has served as Director of Research for the American Association of Health Plans and the Health Insurance Association of America, industry trade associations representing HMOs and health insurance companies. He was also an economist at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the National Center for Health Services Research. Mr. Gabel is the author of 80 published articles in scholarly journals and serves on the editorial boards of a number of journals. He is a frequent speaker at business and professional meetings, and has appeared on many major national television news networks. Often quoted in the trade and popular press on trends in the health care system, he holds degrees in economics from the College of William and Mary and Arizona State University.

Vickie Gates

Vickie Gates is a Vice President of AcademyHealth and serves as Director of the State Coverage Initiatives Program. Previously, Ms. Gates was the Director of the Department of Support Services of Multnomah County, Oregon. She was responsible for central services including finance, human resources, information technology, organizational development, central research and evaluation, and support of the county's quality initiative. Ms. Gates also served on the Board of Directors of the Northwest Health Foundation, Oregon Health Decisions, and the Oregon Coalition of Health Care Purchasers. She currently serves on the Oregon Health Forum Board of Directors.

Ms. Gates has a wide variety of experience in health care and human services. She was the Oregon Health Plan Administrator, responsible to the Governor and the Legislature for oversight and coordination of Oregon's health care reform and health policy development. Prior to this, Ms. Gates served for a number of years in the Oregon Department of Human Resources, including positions as the Deputy Director, and the Director of Program and Finance. Other governmental experience includes the Oregon Legislative Fiscal Office and the Children's Services Division of the Department of Human Resources. Ms. Gates received her B.A. from the University of North Carolina and has pursued graduate studies in history and financial management.

Anne K. Gauthier

Anne Gauthier is Vice President at AcademyHealth, which was formed in June 2000 following the merger of the Alpha Center and the Association for Health Services Research (AHSR). Since joining the Alpha Center in January 1989, Ms. Gauthier has directed a wide range of health policy and demonstration projects concerned with health care financing and delivery issues of national significance.

She serves as Program Director for The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Changes in Health Care Financing and Organization (HCFO) Initiative and as Senior Advisor for the Foundation's State Coverage Initiatives (SCI) program. She is also responsible for developing new Academy programs for research/policy syntheses and information services. Prior to joining the Alpha Center, Ms. Gauthier was Senior Researcher for the National Leadership Commission on Health Care and, for over six years, served the Congress of the United States in its Office of Technology Assessment. A graduate of Princeton University, Ms. Gauthier earned her M.S. in Health Administration at the University of Massachusetts (Amherst) School of Public Health.

W. David Helms, Ph.D.

David Helms is President and CEO of the AcademyHealth. The Academy was formed on June 19, 2000 from the merger of the Alpha Center and the Association for Health Services Research (AHSR). The purpose of this Academy is to improve health and health care by generating new knowledge and moving knowledge into action. The Academy and its 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 to leading the development of this new Academy, Dr. Helms serves as the program director for The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's (RWJF) State Coverage Initiatives, a national demonstration program to support state efforts to expand health insurance coverage. He also serves as project director for AcademyHealth's contract with the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) to conduct workshops and prepare research reviews for state and local government officials.

Dr. Helms founded and directed the Alpha Center from 1976-2000. Through these 25 years Alpha was known as 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, Syracuse University.

Barbara Ladon

Barbara Ladon is currently Director of the Office of Child Health Plan Plus in the Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing. The Colorado program is a non-Medicaid expansion, which has enrolled over 30,000 children. Ms. Ladon has extensive experience nationally in public-sector health care development with primary accomplishments in business development, program innovation and evaluation, management, and marketing. Ms. Ladon was Vice President of Public Sector Program Development for United HealthCare and was principal owner of HealthPro, Inc. in Worcester, Massachusetts, a company specializing in public sector utilization and data management. Previously, Ms. Ladon had an extensive consulting practice, working with providers entering the managed care arena, managed care companies, and public sector organizations.

Len M. Nichols, Ph.D.

Len Nichols is an economist and Principal Research Associate at the Urban Institute who studies private health insurance markets and how they work in response to decisions by employers, individuals, regulators, and public insurance programs. He has written extensively on these and other issues under the general rubric of health reform. Dr. Nichols is currently a member of both the Competitive Pricing Advisory Commission (CPAC) for the U.S. Medicare program and the Technical Review Panel for the Medicare Trustees Reports. He was the Senior Advisor for Health Policy at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) during the development of and debate over the Clinton health reform proposals of 1993-94. Prior to OMB, Dr. Nichols was a visiting Public Health Service Fellow at the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research, and prior to that he was an Associate Professor and Economics Department Chair at Wellesley College. He received his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Illinois in 1980.

Mark E. Reynolds

Mark Reynolds is the Deputy Commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Finance and Administration and Director of TennCare (the Tennessee Medicaid program). TennCare serves one out of every four Tennesseans. Mr. Reynolds has served in this capacity for the past year. Until last year, he was the Acting Commissioner of the Massachusetts Division of Medical Assistance. Mr. Reynolds has worked on state Medicaid and health care policy since 1989. Before becoming Acting Commissioner he served as Deputy Commissioner for three years. He also served as Budget Director for the Massachusetts Executive Office of Health and Human Services and Assistant Director of the Massachusetts Budget Bureau. Mr. Reynolds has a B.A. from Swarthmore College and has done graduate work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Ree Sailors

Ree Sailors brings more than 25 years of experience in the health and human services arenas. She presently serves as the Executive Health Policy Advisor to Governor Locke of Washington State. Prior to that, she served as the Public Policy Coordinator for the Community Health Purchasing Alliances of Florida. Ms. Sailors managed the Commercial HMO regulatory functions within the Agency for Health Care Administration which included quality certification of HMOs, supervision of external review panels, and consumer assistance hotlines. She was the President and CEO of the Florida Health Access Corporation, the country's first operational government-sponsored health purchasing alliance for small businesses. Ms. Sailors has extensive background in public policy analysis and consensus-building techniques having served as Executive Director of numerous gubernatorial and legislative blue ribbon task forces examining issues such as: competition and consumer choice in health care, medical malpractice, indigent care financing, and regulatory programs like certificate of need and hospital revenue assessments. Ms. Sailors is a graduate of Florida State University, where she received a Master's degree in Social Work with emphasis in Planning and Administration.

John Santa, M.D.

John Santa is currently the Administrator of the Office for Oregon Health Plan Policy and Research. Dr. Santa is a general internist with experience in a diverse array of clinical, administrative, community, and research activities. Dr. Santa attended Stanford University, Tufts Medical School, and is now pursuing a Master's degree in Public Health at Oregon Health Sciences University. He practiced medicine for thirteen years in solo, group, and employed settings. He has worked in administrative positions for hospitals, insurers, medical groups, and now the State of Oregon. Dr. Santa's activities have often involved implementation of health policy initiatives.

Donald Schneider

Don Schneider has worked for the Wisconsin Department of Health and Family Services for the past 25 years. Since 1997, he has been the Chief of the Coordination of Benefits Section in the Division of Health Care Financing. Mr. Schneider also worked on the development of Wisconsin's BadgerCare Program and in 1999 assumed responsibility for managing the BadgerCare HIPP program. Wisconsin's BadgerCare HIPP Program purchases employer-sponsored health insurance for low-income working families. Prior to 1997, Mr. Schneider was the Field Operations Manager of the Department's program for state licensing and Medicare and Medicaid Certification of health care providers.

James Schwartz

James Schwartz is Executive Director of Alliance Employee Health Access, a not-for-profit organization based in Topeka, Kansas. Alliance's mission is to expand the incidence of health insurance among workers in small Kansas businesses. In particular, Alliance develops pooled purchasing arrangements that offer small groups individual choice of multiple health-plan types.

Before taking on his current position in 1999, Mr. Schwartz was, for 14 years, Executive Director of the Kansas Employer Coalition on Health, a statewide membership organization of larger businesses who shared concerns about employee health issues. Near the end of that tenure, Mr. Schwartz was the inspiration behind successful Kansas legislation providing a tax credit for first-time health insurance purchasers within the small business community.

Sandra Shewry

Sandra Shewry is the Executive Director of the Managed Risk Medical Insurance Board (MRMIB). The Board has the broad mission of increasing and improving affordable, accessible, quality health care coverage for all Californians. The Board administers three health care purchasing programs - a high risk pool for uninsurable individuals (MRMIP), a subsidized pregnancy and infant care program (AIM), and the state's Title XXI children's health insurance program (Healthy Families). Prior to July 1999, the Board administered the Health Insurance Plan of California, a small employer purchasing cooperative.

Ms. Shewry has a Master's degree in Public Health and a Master's degree in Social Welfare from the University of California at Berkeley. Ms. Shewry is a member of the Commonwealth Fund's Task Force on the Future of Health Insurance for Working Americans, a Steering Committee Member of the National Medicaid and S-CHIP Purchasing Institute, and a Steering Committee Member for the National Academy for State Health Policy.

Benjamin P. Wheatley

Ben Wheatley serves as a Senior Associate at AcademyHealth, having joined the organization in May 1997. He works primarily on The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's State Coverage Initiatives program, assisting state officials in developing and implementing strategies to expand health insurance coverage through public programs. He has authored technical assistance products focusing on state children's health coverage programs and efforts to promote more seamless insurance coverage for low-income families. He has also worked with states in developing and implementing coordinated health care purchasing strategies. Prior to joining AcademyHealth, Mr. Wheatley worked as a researcher at the National Rehabilitation Hospital Research Center where he analyzed the impact of managed care on post-acute providers and the consolidation of the rehabilitation hospital industry through mergers and acquisitions. Prior to that, he worked as an analyst in the Business Development office of the University of California at San Diego Medical Center. Mr. Wheatley is a graduate of Georgetown University, where he received a Master's Degree in Public Policy with an emphasis in health care policy.