September 16, 2020

For Immediate Release                                                                           Contact: Sandra Hernandez 

    September 16, 2020                                                                                          (650) 963-6516   

ITUP Announces Four New Board of Directors 

SACRAMENTO, CA — Insure the Uninsured Project (ITUP) announced today that four new individuals joined the ITUP Board of Directors. 

ITUP welcomes Dr. Elaine Batchlor, Chief Executive Officer, Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Hospital, Jonathan Freedman, Vice President, Health Management Associates, Robert Phillips, Chief Executive Officer, Alluma, and Dr. Jeffrey Reynoso, Executive Director, Latino Coalition for a Healthy California (LCHC) to the Board of Directors. 

“We are excited to announce that ITUP is adding four new Board Members to our Board of Directors,” said ITUP Executive Director Katie Heidorn. “They each bring extensive expertise and diverse perspectives to the ITUP Board that will guide our work in the challenging months and years ahead.” 

For 25 years, ITUP has been a trusted expert in the health policy space. The organization’s mission is to promote  innovative and workable policy solutions that expand health care access and improve the  health of Californians. Each year, ITUP hosts its Annual Conference in February, partners with local community and governmental entities to conduct regional workgroups, and publishes informative fact sheets and in-depth policy briefs to further this work. 

“I am grateful that Dr. Batchlor, Mr. Freedman, Mr. Phillips, and Dr. Reynoso will lend their time, expertise, and passion to ITUP to transform the health system and achieve health equity,” said ITUP Board Chair Richard Chambers. “Now more than ever, we need to come together as a community to further ITUP’s values of creating a universal, accessible, affordable, effective, and equitable health system.” 

The new ITUP Board Members’ terms began September 1, 2020. Visit ITUP.org to learn more. 

About ITUP’s New Board Members 

Elaine Batchlor, MD, MPH, is the Chief Executive Officer of Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Hospital, a state-of-the-art private safety net hospital providing compassionate, quality care to the South Los Angeles community. Her innovative work to increase access for underserved populations has been recognized nationally, earning her recognition as an Irvine Foundation California Leader, a Becker’s Review listing among the top 26 women physician executives in the country, and membership in the National Academy of Medicine. Before assuming leadership of Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Hospital, Dr. Batchlor served as Chief Medical Officer of L.A. Care Health Plan, the nation’s largest public health plan providing care to a safety net population.  She has also served as Vice President of Finance, Organization and Operations at the California HealthCare Foundation, where she developed and oversaw research, policy analysis, and programs aimed at improving health care financing and delivery. Early in her career, Dr. Batchlor served as Medical Director for the Los Angeles County Office of Managed Care and as a Chief Medical Officer for Prudential Health Care.  Dr. Batchlor is an active community volunteer, serving on multiple community and health care boards. She chairs the Los Angeles Hospital Leadership Group, part of the Hospital Association of Southern California.  She is a member of the Board of Directors of the Integrated Healthcare Association, the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health Advisory Board and the Hospital Quality Institute, among others. As a Harvard University alumna, Dr. Batchlor serves the university as an interviewer for the Los Angeles area. Dr. Batchlor holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Harvard University, a Masters of Public Health from the University of California, Los Angeles, and a Doctorate of Medicine from Case Western Reserve University. She is board-certified in both internal medicine and rheumatology. Dr. Elaine Batchlor is the proud mother of twin boys, and married to an attorney who works as a Los Angeles County public defender. 

Jonathan Freedman, MSPH, is Vice President of Health Management Associates, a national independent consulting and research firm. Jonathan works with plans, providers, associations, and governmental and non-governmental entities in the areas of public health, safety net healthcare, and public policy. He has held key positions at L.A. Care Health Plan, and in the Los Angeles County Chief Executive Office and the Departments of Public Health and Health Services. Jonathan is a lecturer at UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, and is on the board of the Worker Education & Resource Center, a non-profit focused on high-road partnerships that link impacted persons to good, stable and permanent jobs. 

Robert Phillips, MPA, MPH, is the Chief Executive Officer of Alluma where he leads the strategic direction, fiscal stewardship, daily operations, and overall management of the organization. Robert has been acting on his commitment to improve the health and wellbeing of communities in the U.S. and California for over 25 years. He played a crucial role in strategic philanthropic and advocacy efforts to improve the health of children and youth of color, expand health coverage to all children in California, modernize enrollment into public programs using technology solutions, and implement electronic health records in community clinics. His leadership at Alluma builds from experience at the California Endowment, Sierra Health Foundation, PolicyLink, AFL-CIO, SEIU, and Kaiser Permanente’s Community Benefit and Strategy.  

Jeffrey Reynoso, DrPH, MPH, is the Executive Director of the Latino Coalition for a Healthy California (LCHC) a policy organization advocating for health equity of the Latino community. In his role, he is responsible for strategic leadership and external relations, fundraising and financial management, organizational development of the staff and Board, and delivering on policy advocacy and programmatic initiatives. For over a decade, he has worked on health equity and social justice issues spanning academia, government, and non-profit sectors at multiple levels including local/regional, state, and national. Most recently, he worked at Kaiser Permanente as a Doctoral Fellow designing innovative programs to address food insecurity in the Southern California region. 

About ITUP 

Insure the Uninsured Project (ITUP) is a Sacramento–based nonprofit, 501(c)(3) organization, founded in 1996. ITUP is dedicated to advancing creative and workable policy solutions that expand health care access and improve the health of Californians. ITUP conducts policy-focused research and broad-based stakeholder forums on health topics, acting as an impartial convener among diverse health care leaders in the state. Learn more at ITUP.org. 

 

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