Contact Information
PNHP Illinois
E-mail: info@pnhpillinois.org
Illinois Single-Payer Coalition
http://ilsinglepayer.org/
PNHP Illinois is an organizational member of ISPC.
For upcoming single-payer events in Illinois:
http://ilsinglepayer.org/events
State Legislation
Illinois Universal Health Care Act — HB 2436 (link)
The Illinois Universal Health Care Act (HB 2436, formerly HB 311, HB 942, and HB 108) establishes a statewide universal health insurance plan to provide comprehensive health benefits to all Illinoisans equally.
Speakers and Media Contacts
DAVID ANSELL, MD, MPH, FACP
Dr. David Ansell is the Senior Vice President for Community Health Equity at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago.
He is an internal medicine physician, trained at Cook County Hospital in the late 1970s, where he spent 17 years holding a number of positions including chief of general medicine/primary care. After leaving County, he spent 10 years as chair of the department of internal medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital, located in one of the highest hardship communities in Chicago. He has been particularly involved in health equity work, bringing attention to higher rates of breast cancer mortality for African-American women in Chicago. In 2007 he co-founded the Metropolitan Chicago Breast Cancer Taskforce, a not-for-profit that focuses on eliminating the racial disparities in breast cancer mortality.
He is the author of numerous papers and book chapters on health disparities. In 2011 he published an acclaimed memoir based on his experiences as a doctor in Chicago, County: Life, Death and Politics at Chicago’s Public Hospital. His most recent book, The Death Gap: How Inequality Kills, was released by the University of Chicago Press in 2017.
Dr. Ansell is a graduate of SUNY Upstate Medical University and received his Masters of Public Health from the University of Illinois School of Public Health.
CLAUDIA FEGAN, MD, CHCQM FACP
773.753.5509
one4singlepayer@gmail.com
Dr. Claudia Fegan is national coordinator of Physicians for a National Health Program. In her current and past leadership roles in PNHP she has appeared on national television and radio programs on behalf of the organization, and has testified before congressional committees on a wide range of health care issues. She has lectured extensively to both medical and community audiences on health care reform in the U.S. and Canada, and is a co-author of the book “Universal Healthcare: What the United States Can Learn from Canada” and a contributor to “10 Excellent Reasons for National Health Care.”
Dr. Fegan is executive medical officer for the Cook County Health and Hospital System and chief medical officer at John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital of Cook County. She is also president of the Chicago-based Health and Medicine Policy Research Group. In 2016, Modern Healthcare named Dr. Fegan one of “10 Minority Executives to Watch,” noting her achievements in the medical profession and her single-payer activism.
Dr. Fegan received her undergraduate degree from Fisk University and her medical degree from the University of Illinois College of Medicine. She is also certified in health care quality and management and is a diplomate of the American Board of Quality Assurance and Utilization Review Physicians.
PAMELLA GRONEMEYER, MD
Dr. Pam Gronemeyer is a PNHP member, co-president of PNHP-IL (southern division), board member of Missourians for Single-Payer, and vice president of the Illinois Single Payer Coalition board. She is a board-certified anatomic and clinical pathologist. She received a biology degree from Washington University in St. Louis; attended Tufts University School of Medicine; and completed her pathology residencies at New England Deaconess Hospital in Boston, Barnes-Jewish Hospital of St. Louis, and St. Louis University Hospitals.
Dr. Gronemeyer is the director and a woman small business owner of SEMC Pathology, LLC in Highland, IL, a pathology business that provides services to six critical access hospitals in southwestern Illinois – St. Joseph’s Hospital (Highland, IL), Red Bud Regional hospital (Red Bud, IL), Washington County Hospital (Nashville, IL), Pinckneyville Community Hospital (Pinckneyville, IL), Marshall Browning Hospital (DuQuoin, IL) and Community Memorial Hospital (Staunton, IL). The service also runs a CAP accredited cytology laboratory with testing for sexually-transmitted diseases and gynecologic and nongynecologic cytologies.
She is actively involved in directing the infection control committees in the hospitals as well as working on quality assurance activities and advocating for patient safety. She believes “healthcare is a human right” and provides healthcare insurance to her employees and their dependents. She is an activist in her community and in the healthcare arena. As the child of a late union laborer, she knows that our safety net is vital to the preservation of our democracy.
PETER ORRIS, MD, MPH, FACP, FACOEM
Dr. Peter Orris, a founding member of PNHP, is professor and chief of Occupational and Environmental Medicine for the University of Illinois Hospital and Health Sciences System. He has been an attending physician in the Division of Occupational Medicine at the Stroger Hospital of Cook County (formerly Cook County Hospital) for over three decades, where he practiced and taught internal and occupational medicine on the teaching services. He maintains an active clinical and teaching practice and holds professorships as well in internal and preventive medicine at Rush University Medical College and the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. His research and teaching have focused on international health care systems, occupational and community effects of toxic chemicals, and more recently sustainable health care and climate change.
Dr. Orris has served as an adviser to many labor organizations, corporations, and nonprofit groups. On an international level he has been an adviser to the World Health Organization, Pan American Health Organization, World Medical Association, World Federation of Public Health Associations, and Health Care Without Harm. He has a long history of advocacy for elimination of profits and racism in health care and opposing corporate policies that poison the environment of the developing world.
He an active member of the American Public Health Association, and serves on the council of the Chicago Medical Society and as a delegate to the Illinois State Medical Society. Dr. Orris graduated Harvard College in 1967, Yale School of Public Health in 1970, and the Chicago Medical School of the Rosalind Franklin University in 1975.
JOHN PERRYMAN, MD
drjohnperryman@gmail.com
Dr. John Perryman, a general pediatrician, is a graduate of the University of Michigan Medical School, and completed pediatrics training at Children’s Memorial Hospital. He is currently employed by MercyHealth, working in the Rockford area. In addition to serving on several health care committees over his 25-plus years in practice, he has completed multiple graduate level business courses. Dr. Perryman is the current co-president of PNHP in northern Illinois, and is working on outreach about single-payer health care to a variety of organizations in the state.
SUSAN ROGERS, MD, FACP
Dr. Susan Rogers, recently retired, is a volunteer attending hospitalist and internist at the John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital of Cook County. She previously was co-director of medical student programs for the Department of Medicine. She is also assistant professor of medicine at Rush University, where she is active on the committee of admissions, and assistant professor of medicine at Rosalind Franklin University. She has received numerous teaching awards from Stroger Hospital, Rush University, and Rosalind Franklin University.
Dr. Rogers received her medical degree from the University of Illinois College of Medicine and completed her residency at Cook County Hospital, where she served as chief resident. She is a past co-president of Health Care for All Illinois, and she previously served on the boards of the Near North Health Service Corp, a FQHC in Chicago, and Ancona School. Dr. Rogers is a member of the American College of Physicians, the Society of General Internal Medicine, and the National Medical Association.
Steering Committee
PNHP Illinois Steering Committee
Founder:
Nicholas Skala
Steering Committee:
Michael Allgeier, DC, MDT
Sobia Ansari, MD
David Ansell MD, MPH, FACP
Nahiris Bahamon, MD
Kathy Bottum, MD, PhD
Sydney Doe, MD, Resident Representative
Duane Dowell, MD, Past Co-President
Claudia Fegan, MD, CHCQM, FACP
Peter Gann, MD, ScD
Pamella Gronemeyer, MD, FCAP, Co-President for Southern Illinois
Ida Hellander, MD
Winnie Lin, MD
Monica Maalouf, MD, Co-President for Northern Illinois
Lisa Messinger, MD
Alex Neuman, DO
Peter Orris, MD, MPH, FACP, FACOEM
Lisa Peck, MD
John Perryman, MD, Immediate past Co-President
Simon Piller, MD
Ezekiel Richardson, MD, Resident Representative
Anne Robin, MD
Susan Rogers, MD, FACP, Past Co-President
Shannon Rotolo, PharmD
Anne Scheetz, MD, FACP, Organizer
Alap Shah, MD, Past Co-President
Howard Waitzkin, MD, PhD
Daniel Yohanna, MD