Len Nichols, Ph.D.
Len Nichols, Ph.D. (Disclosure)
Len Nichols became Director of the Center for Health Policy Research and Ethics (CHPRE) and a Professor of Health Policy at George Mason University on March 1, 2010. As he works to strengthen CHPRE’s connections to national, state, and private sector conversations about ways to improve the performance, sustainability, and equity of the US health care system, he continues to bridge the worlds of health policy, health politics, health economics, health services research, and to help make sense of it all for policy makers, private sector leaders, other researchers, and journalists. He is fundamentally committed to making our health system sustainable in the diverse communities that comprise our nation, which means making high quality care affordable by families, employers, and governments while also being rewarding for providers.
Len now serves as the Editor-in-Chief of the online Community on Payment Innovations, a joint project of the American College of Cardiology and the American Journal of Managed Care. Len also serves on the board of directors of the National Committee on Quality Assurance, of Academy Health, of the Arkansas Center for Health Improvement, and is a member of the National Committee on Vital Health Statistics which advises the Secretary of Health and Human Services on measurement policy issues. From 2005-2010, Len was the Director of the Health Policy Program at the New America Foundation, where he contributed to the national health reform debate through testimony, briefings, writing, news commentary, and public speaking. For example, he delivered the Bishop Lecture at the ACC’s Annual Scientific Meeting in 2009. He also organized Health CEOs for Health Reform, a multi-sector group of leaders who helped policy makers see how delivery reform and insurance reform reinforce each other. He has been intimately involved in health reform debates, policy development, and communication for over 18 years, and is one of the few analysts in Washington that maintains the respect and engagement of elected officials from both sides of the aisle. In addition to testimony Len often is asked to provide technical expertise to members of Congress, governors, state legislators, and other policy officials around the country. Most recently he has been a Technical Advisor to the Virginia Health Reform Initiative, on a variety of insurance reform and delivery system reform topics.
Len has consistently sought to add moral arguments to the technical health policy debate, and in so doing helps journalists and others remember why the issue is so important to our country. Because of his reputation as an unbiased and knowledgeable health reform analyst, he is frequently interviewed and quoted by major media outlets including the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, National Journal, the Wall Street Journal, Time and Newsweek magazines, National Public Radio, Lerher News Hour, the British Broadcasting Service, NBC Nightly News, ABC News Tonight, and CBS Evening News.
Len has served as Vice President of the Center for Studying Health System Change, a Principal Research Associate at the Urban Institute and during the first two years of the Clinton Administration, the Senior Advisor for Health Policy at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Len was also a visiting Public Health Service Fellow at the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research during 1991-1992, and prior to that he was an Associate Professor and Economics Department Chair at Wellesley College, where he taught from 1980-1991. His Ph.D. is from the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana.