Health care & health policy
Health care, understood from every angle.
I have solved problems from the policy side and the operational side, and navigated each within government and within industry — bringing the political, policy, financial, legal, and consumer perspectives into a single view. Increasingly, I focus it where it is needed most: helping advocates, policymakers, and state agency leaders make sense of how health care is purchased, regulated, and financed, with especially deep roots in Medicaid, including financing and state budgets.
What I believe
The system should work better for the people it is meant to serve.
I believe everyone deserves access to good, basic health care — and that the systems built to deliver it are too often needlessly complex, opaque, and hard to navigate. My work is about breaking that complexity down: helping the people who fund, regulate, run, and advocate for these systems make better decisions.
Who I help
Plans, providers & industry organizations
Strategy, growth, partnerships, and new lines of business in a competitive, regulated market.
Advocates, policymakers & state agency leaders
A guide and translator for those navigating health care with less experience of it — making coverage, purchasing, regulation, and financing understandable, with deep Medicaid and state-budget expertise.
Perspectives I bring
Complex health care problems look different depending on where you sit — political, policy, operational, financial, legal, and the consumer's. I have worked from most of those seats.
Health care advisor to Governor Kate Brown and legislative director at the Oregon Health Authority — building bipartisan support and moving legislation through a divided capitol.
Director of Oregon's Health Policy and Analytics Division, designing and running state health reform across a division with a $2 billion annual budget and 200-plus staff.
Oregon Market President for PacificSource Health Plans, leading market strategy and growth and delivering under the rules that policy sets.
An attorney by training, with deep experience in Medicaid financing, provider taxes, federal waivers, and state budgets.
Accountable throughout for the experience of the members and patients the system exists to serve.
Areas of depth
- Medicaid, Medicare & commercial insurance strategy
- Health plan & payer operations, growth & strategy
- Value-based care & payment reform
- Cost containment & cost-growth targets
- Medicaid financing, provider taxes & transfers
- Federal waivers: 1115, 1332 & 1331
- Delivery-system & coordinated-care transformation
- Health care regulation & market oversight
Signature record
The same record, in full health care terms.
Negotiated a bipartisan provider-tax and reinsurance package that closed a $1B Medicaid shortfall — raising $600M in new revenue, preserving coverage for 400,000 members, and reducing individual-market premiums 6%.
Executive sponsor of Oregon's statewide Medicaid managed care re-procurement — the largest procurement in state history, serving 1.4 million members.
Led the design and negotiation of federal 1115 Medicaid waivers, including an expedited five-year renewal completed in eight months, plus a 1331 Basic Health Plan ("OHP Bridge").
Created Oregon's Cost Growth Target and Health Care Market Oversight programs from the ground up — both now recognized as national models.
Directed the successful bid to launch a new Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly line of business.
How I help in health care
Strategy & growth
For plans and providers — market roadmaps across commercial, Medicare, and Medicaid, payer-provider alignment, value-based models, and new lines of business.
Policy design & implementation
For agencies, policymakers, and advocates — turning policy goals into programs that actually work, translating operational reality back into policy, and building the consensus to move it.
Financing, budgets & regulation
For industry and public-sector leaders alike — Medicaid financing, provider taxes, waivers, rate and contracting insight, and state-budget strategy.
An area of growing focus
Helping those with less experience navigate the complexity.
Increasingly, my favorite work is helping advocates, policymakers, and state executive agency leaders navigate the complexity of health care — how it is purchased, regulated, and financed. I have experience across every market and especially deep experience in Medicaid, including financing and state budgets. I like taking that experience and making it usable for people working hard to get their arms around these issues without having lived them.
Get in touch