Advisory Board

Kirk Adams is the Executive Director of the Healthcare Education Project (HEP), a health care advocacy organization jointly funded by 1199 UHE and League of Voluntary Hospitals. At HEP, Adams has developed a state and national based capacity to speak on behalf of providers, health care workers and consumers in promoting affordable, high quality health care for all.  A long-time organizer and political activist, Adams began organizing low-wage workers in Boston, Detroit and New Orleans in the 1980s and spent years helping health care workers earn a voice on the job in Beverly nursing homes in Texas, and hospitals in the South, the Northwest and California.

Adams was tapped by President Andy Stern to serve as Chief of Staff for Service Employees International Union (SEIU) in 2000 and in 2007 became Division Director of SEIU Healthcare, playing a critical role in the passage of health care reform. Adams once again served as Chief of Staff when Mary Kay Henry was elected International President in 2010 before resuming his previous position as Division Director of SEIU Healthcare later that year. In September 2011, Adams was elected to serve as SEIU’s International Executive Vice President for Healthcare. His work in health care was recognized by Modern Healthcare who named him one of the 100 Most Influential People in Healthcare in 2015. He continues to work closely with SEIU on national health care issues.

Geoff Garin became president of Hart Research in 1984, after having worked in the firm since 1978 as a senior analyst and vice president. He previously served as the legislative director for U.S. Senator John Heinz (D-PA). Geoff has worked with Protect Our Care since its inception after the 2016 election and has conducted over a dozen research projects on Protect Our Care’s behalf. He also polls regularly for many leading progressive organizations, including the Center for American Progress, Planned Parenthood Action Fund, the League of Conservation Voters, Climate Power, the American Federation of Teachers, and SEIU.

In politics, Geoff has directed the polling and created winning campaign strategies for many of the Democratic leaders serving in the United States Senate today, including U.S. Senators Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Mark Warner (D-VA), Patrick Leahy (D-VT), and Ben Cardin (D-MD). He has been a lead pollster for Priorities USA since its founding, and for the past several election cycles has conducted the battleground polling for Senate Majority PAC.

Dr. Lynn R. Goldman, a pediatrician and an epidemiologist, is the Michael and Lori Milken Dean and Professor of Environmental and Occupational Health at the Milken Institute School of Public Health at the George Washington University. She is a renowned expert in pediatric environmental health and chemicals policy. She has engaged in translating research to policy through writing policy analyses and via Congressional testimony in service of successful efforts by Congress to achieve passage of reforms both to federal pesticide law (the 1996 Food Quality Protection Act) and federal chemicals law (the 2016 Lautenberg Chemical Safety Act for the 21st Century) as well as legislation to establish California’s Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program. 

She was previously Professor of Environmental Health Sciences at the Bloomberg School of Public Health (1999-2010); Assistant Administrator for Toxic Substances at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, where she directed the Office of Chemical Safety and Prevention (1993 – 1998); and Chief of the Division of Environmental and Occupational Disease Control (as well as other positions) at the California Department of Public Health.

Elena Hung is the Executive Director and Co-Founder of Little Lobbyists, a family-led organization that advocates for children with complex medical needs and disabilities. Elena, her daughter Xiomara, and families like them have been visiting Capitol Hill and offices across the country to share their stories and speak with lawmakers and their staffers about what is possible with access to quality, affordable health care, and what is at stake without it.

She was honored with the inaugural “Speak Up For Better Health” award by the Center for Consumer Engagement in Health Innovation at Community Catalyst and recognized as “Ally of the Year” by the Autistic Self Advocacy Network. She is a frequent speaker at conferences (including Families USA, Netroots Nation, RESULTS International), as well as press conferences and public events. She has testified before Congress twice on health care matters. She is also a national co-chair of Health Care Voter, a Get Out The Vote campaign holding elected officials accountable for their voting record on health care issues.

Chris Jennings is an over three decades-long health policy veteran of the White House, the Congress and the private sector. Mr. Jennings is the President and Founder of Jennings Policy Strategies (JPS), a nationally respected health care consulting firm committed to assisting foundations, purchasers, health systems and other aligned stakeholders develop policies to ensure higher quality, more affordable health care. He is also a senior fellow at the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC). 

In January 2014, Mr. Jennings departed from his second tour of duty in the White House where he served President Obama as the Senior Advisor for Health Policy and Coordinator of Health Reform. He served in a similar capacity in the Clinton White House for nearly eight years. Since 1992, Mr. Jennings has advised over ten Democratic Presidential campaigns on health reform policy and was appointed to the 2008, 2016 and 2020 Democratic Platform Drafting Committees. Throughout his career, he has counseled countless Democratic gubernatorial and Congressional candidates and has been a trusted advisor of the Congressional Leadership and their staffs for decades.

Anne Pfrimmer is the Deputy Director of SEIU Healthcare, the health care division of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). In this role, Anne focuses on promoting and protecting the foundations of our health care system – Medicaid, Medicare and the Affordable Care Act – including directing SEIU’s campaign to defend the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid in 2017 and the union’s 2014 efforts to reach more than 2.5 million workers in twenty-two states to let them know about their new health care options under the Affordable Care Act. 

She is committed to the right of workers to form and join unions to improve their lives and works to make sure that the voices of frontline health care workers are heard as we transform America’s health care system and improve access and the quality of care in every setting, including long term care. A health care advocate and political organizer for decades, she has played a variety of roles in grassroots, issue, electoral and union campaigns. Anne began her career with the March of Dimes where she worked to increase health care access for Louisiana’s mothers and babies.

Kathleen Sebelius is one of America’s foremost experts on national and global health issues, human services, and executive leadership. As CEO of Sebelius Resources LLC, she provides strategic advice to companies, investors, and non-profit organizations. Sebelius serves on the boards of directors of Devoted Health, Exact Sciences, Grand Rounds, Humacyte, the Kaiser Family Foundation, and Myovant Sciences. She co-chairs the Aspen Institute Health Strategy Group and serves on advisory boards for the Dole Institute of Politics, Solera Health, Out Leadership, the Estée Lauder Foundation, and the University of Kansas College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

Having served as Governor of Kansas from 2003 to 2009, Sebelius is the only daughter of a governor to be elected governor in American history; her late father, John Gilligan, was Governor of Ohio. From April 2009 through June 2014, Sebelius served in President Barack Obama’s Cabinet as the 21st Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, where she worked to pass and implement the Affordable Care Act. At HHS, Sebelius managed 11 operating agencies, 90,000 employees in 50 countries around the world, and a $1 trillion budget. Forbes named Sebelius one of the 100 most powerful women in the world.

Andy Slavitt was President Biden’s White House Senior Advisor for the Covid response. He has led many of the nation’s most important health care initiatives, serving as President Obama’s head of Medicare and Medicaid and overseeing the turnaround, implementation and defense of the Affordable Care Act. Slavitt is the “outsider’s insider”, serving in leading private and non-profit roles in addition to his government services. he is founder and Board Chair Emeritus of United States of Care, a national non-profit health advocacy organization as well as a founding partner of Town Hall Ventures, a health care firm that invests in underrepresented communities. 

He co-chaired a national initiative on the future of health care at the Bipartisan Policy Center. He chronicles what goes on inside the government and across the nation at town halls, in USA Today, on his award-winning podcast In the Bubble, and on Twitter. He is also the author of Preventable, a best-selling account of the US’s Coronavirus response released in 2021.