Speakers

As President and CEO of Purchaser Business Group on Health, Elizabeth Mitchell advances PBGH’s strategic focus areas of advanced primary care, functional markets, and purchasing value. Mitchell leads PBGH in mobilizing healthcare purchasers, elevating the role and impact of primary care, and creating functional healthcare markets to support high-quality affordable care, achieving measurable impacts on outcomes and affordability.

At PBGH, Elizabeth leverages her extensive experience in working with healthcare purchasers, providers, policymakers, and payers to improve healthcare quality and cost. She previously served as Senior Vice President for Healthcare and Community Health Transformation at Blue Shield of California, during which time she designed Blue Shield’s strategy for transforming practice, payment, and community health. Mitchell also served as the President and CEO of the Network for Regional Healthcare Improvement (NRHI), a network of regional quality improvement and measurement organizations. She also served as CEO of Maine’s business coalition on health (the Maine Health Management Coalition), worked within an integrated delivery system (MaineHealth), and was elected to the Maine State Legislature, serving as a State Representative.

Elizabeth served as Vice Chairperson of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Physician-Focused Payment Model Technical Advisory Committee, Board and Executive Committee Member of the National Quality Forum (NQF), Member of the National Academy of Medicine’s “Vital Signs” Study Committee on core metrics and a Guiding Committee Member for the Health Care Payment Learning & Action Network.

Elizabeth holds a degree in religion from Reed College and studied social policy at the London School of Economics. She is a mom of four and grandmother of Clementine and Poppy.

Wendell Potter is unique in American journalism and advocacy—and uniquely able to influence public policy and media coverage across a broad range of issues about healthcare and money in politics. A former investigative reporter, Washington correspondent and corporate executive, Wendell delivers an insider’s perspective into those issues as editor-in-chief of his HEALTH CARE un-covered newsletter, host of The HEALTH CARE un-covered Show, and through the nonprofit work he leads.

Since leaving his 20-year career as an executive at two of the world’s largest healthcare corporations—Cigna and Humana—Wendell has testified before Congress numerous times to explain how the health insurance industry really works. He made headlines during his first appearance as a whistleblower when he described in Senate testimony how health insurers “confuse their customers and dump the sick, all so they can appease their Wall Street Investors.”

Wendell is also a bestselling author and journalist whose work has been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Today, and many other media outlets. In addition, he is the founder and president of the Center for Health and Democracy and leads the Lower Out-of-Pockets (LOOP) NOW coalition, which works with policymakers, employers, and health benefits consultants to reduce the unsustainably high deductibles and other cost-sharing requirements that burden millions of American families. He also has helped produce four documentaries that delve into various aspects of the U.S. healthcare system.

Zirui Song, M.D., Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Health Care Policy and Medicine at Harvard Medical School and general internist at Massachusetts General Hospital, where he practices primary care and on the inpatient teaching service. His work focuses on the health and economic effects of public policies and private sector interventions in the healthcare system. This includes payment reform, Medicare financing, healthcare prices, employer programs, and private capital investments in care delivery. His related work examines issues in primary care and public health.

Dr. Song has worked on Medicare payment policy at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and with state policymakers on issues around healthcare access and affordability. He is an Associate Editor of JAMA Health Forum and Editorial Board member of Health Affairs and Health Services Research. Dr. Song leads the Health Policy track of the MGH Internal Medicine Residency and serves as Director of Admissions for the Harvard Ph.D. program in Health Policy. He also teaches health policy courses for Harvard Medical and Dental students, Mass General Brigham residents, and Harvard Executive Education. He is an elected member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation and National Academy of Social Insurance. 

Dr. Song received a M.D., magna cum laude, and Ph.D. in Health Policy (economics track) from Harvard, with a fellowship at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He received a B.A. in Public Health Studies with honors from Johns Hopkins University.