PNHP

John Perryman, MD

John Perryman, MD

Pediatrics

Region(s):

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.

Judith Albert, MD

Judith Albert, MD

OB/GYN and reproductive endocrinology

Region(s): ,
Specialty: ,

Dr. Judy Albert is a reproductive endocrinologist and medical director at Reproductive Health Specialists. She is also a clinical assistant professor at the University of Pittsburgh and a leader of Physicians for a National Health Program’s Pittsburgh chapter.

Dr. Albert received her medical degree from the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, completed her residency training in OB/GYN at Magee-Womens Hospital, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and her fellowship training in reproductive endocrinology and infertility (REI) at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.

Dr. Albert’s experience includes practicing and teaching at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center’s Magee-Womens Hospital, where she served as medical director of the in vitro fertilization program and as a medical executive committee member). She is currently involved in several research projects investigating patient fertility evaluation.

In addition to membership with the American Society of Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) and the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Dr. Albert is a member of the Society of Assisted Reproductive Technologies (SART) validation committee. She holds current board certifications in both OB/GYN and REI.

Dr. Albert and several other physicians chartered the new Pittsburgh chapter of PNHP in 2017 and also attended the PNHP Leadership Training Institute in Atlanta in the same year. She participated in numerous forums and presentations in 2018.

Ed Weisbart, MD, CPE, FAAFP

Ed Weisbart, MD, CPE, FAAFP

Family Medicine

Region(s): ,
Specialty:

Dr. Ed Weisbart chairs the Missouri chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program, a 30 year-old non-profit research and education organization of more than 21,000 physicians, medical students, health professionals, and others who support single-payer national health insurance.

He is an assistant professor of clinical medicine at Washington University in St. Louis. He volunteers in a variety of safety net clinics and other non-profits across the St. Louis area, and as a volunteer physician recruiter for free clinics across the nation. He serves as vice president of the Consumers Council of Missouri.

He received his medical degree at the University of Illinois in Chicago in 1979, completed his family medicine residency and a fellowship in family medicine education at Michigan State University in 1982, and practiced family medicine at Rush Medical Center in Chicago for 20 years. He served as chief medical officer of Express Scripts from 2003 to 2010.

Dr. Weisbart has had several articles published in both national medical journals and local media outlets regarding the health care needs of the uninsured.

Philip A. Verhoef, MD, PhD

Philip A. Verhoef, MD, PhD

Critical Care Medicine

Region(s):
Specialty:

Dr. Phil Verhoef is assistant professor of medicine and an intensivist in the adult and pediatric ICUs at the University of Chicago. He is a national board adviser to Physicians for a National Health Program and president of the Illinois Single Payer Coalition.

Dr. Verhoef completed medical and graduate training at Case Western Reserve University, followed by residency in internal medicine and pediatrics at UCLA and subspecialty ICU fellowship training at the University of Chicago. He current research is in the immunology of sepsis in the ICU. He has been published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, Chest, the Chicago Sun-Times, Springfield Journal-Register, and kevinmd.com.

Robert C. Stone, MD, FACEP

Robert C. Stone, MD, FACEP

Emergency Medicine

Region(s):
Specialty:

Dr. Rob Stone is the director and founder of Hoosiers for a Commonsense Health Plan (hchp.info) and the state coordinator in Indiana for Physicians for a National Health Program. Since 2009 he has been a member of PNHP’s board of directors. Dr. Stone practiced emergency medicine at Indiana University Health Bloomington Hospital from 1983 to 2011. He currently serves as the medical director of palliative care at the hospital. Dr. Stone has been a national leader in the movement to divest from for-profit health insurance and is the national coordinator for the Divestment Campaign for Healthcare (HealthCareNotWealthCare.US). He lectures to medical and lay audiences on health care reform throughout Indiana and beyond, and has received several statewide and national awards for his advocacy work. During the heat of the health care debate in June 2009, he presented to the Blue Dog Democratic Caucus in Washington.

Born and raised in Evansville, Ind., he graduated from Dartmouth College Phi Beta Kappa, and obtained his medical degree from the University of Colorado Medical School.

Susan P. Steigerwalt, MD, FACP

Susan P. Steigerwalt, MD, FACP

Nephrology

Region(s):
Specialty:

Dr. Susan Steigerwalt is associate professor of medicine at the University of Michigan and a nephrologist and clinical hypertension specialist with St. Clair Specialty Physicians in Detroit, where she is director of research and the hypertension clinic.

Dr. Steigerwalt received her medical degree from University of Michigan Medical School and completed her residency at Detroit General Hospital, where she served as chief resident. She held fellowships at Wayne State University and Henry Ford Hospital.

A past president of Physicians for a National Health Program, Dr. Steigerwalt has been active in the single-payer movement in Michigan and nationally since 1992. She is a fellow of the American College of Physicians and the American Society of Hypertension, and she has been named a “Best Doctor” by Hour Detroit magazine.

Ann Settgast, MD, DTM&H

Ann Settgast, MD, DTM&H

Internal Medicine

Region(s):
Specialty:

Dr. Ann Settgast graduated from Creighton University School of Medicine in 1999 and completed her residency in internal medicine at the University of Minnesota. Following a chief residency year, she obtained her diploma in tropical medicine & hygiene at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. She then worked with Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors without Borders) in a visceral leishmaniasis project in rural Ethiopia.

Since returning to Minnesota in 2006 she has worked as a general internist, providing primary care to a foreign-born population at the Center for International Health in St. Paul. She also spends two months per year doing inpatient hospitalist work at Regions Hospital. She is a member of the University of Minnesota’s global health faculty and holds a teaching position in the residency continuity clinic. Dr. Settgast is a past co-chair of the Minnesota chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program and a member of the national board of directors.

Johnathon Ross, MD, MPH

Johnathon Ross, MD, MPH

Internal Medicine

Region(s):
Specialty:

Dr. Johnathon Ross is associate clinical professor of medicine at the University of Toledo and practices and teaches general internal medicine at St. Vincent Mercy Medical Center. He is a past president of Physicians for a National Health Program.

A graduate of Cornell University, Dr. Ross received his medical degree from the Medical College of Ohio at Toledo his master’s degree in health policy and administration from the School of Public Health of the University of Michigan.

Dr. Ross has served as a family physician in a small rural community in upstate New York as a member of the National Health Service Corps; as medical director for several organizations; and as chairman of the department of internal medicine at St. Vincent. He has been a member of the executive committee of medical staff at St. Vincent, a board member of its PHO, and chairman of several committees of the hospital, the HMO, and the PHO focused on quality improvement. He has served as a member of the Ohio State Medical Board and helped establish the educational requirements and scope of practice for licensed physician assistants in Ohio.

Dr. Johnathon Ross is a past president of Physicians for a National Health Program, a national health reform group with over 17,000 members (PNHP). He is a graduate of Cornell University and received his medical degree in 1975 from the Medical College of Ohio at Toledo. In addition to his medical degree, he has a master’s degree in health policy and administration from the School of Public Health of the University of Michigan.

He is an Associate Clinical Professor of Internal Medicine at the University of Toledo and currently practices and teaches general internal medicine at St Vincent Mercy Medical Center, a 500-bed center city teaching hospital in Toledo, Ohio. He has served as a family physician in a small rural community in upstate New York as a member of the National Health Service Corps. He has served as medical director for several organizations including a local industrial medicine concern, the local visiting nurse service, a charitable HMO established by his Catholic hospital system and currently a center city adult medical clinic.

He has served as chairman of the department of Internal Medicine at St. Vincent. He has been a member of the executive committee of medical staff of St Vincent, a board member of its PHO, and as chairman of several committees of the hospital, the HMO and the PHO focused on quality improvement. He has served as a member of the Ohio State Medical Board and helped to establish the educational requirements and scope of practice for licensed physician assistants in Ohio. His experience inside the health insurance industry convinced him of the logic and need for a national health insurance program.

Peter Orris, MD, MPH, FACP, FACOEM

Peter Orris, MD, MPH, FACP, FACOEM

Internal and Occupational Medicine

Region(s):
Specialty: ,

Dr. Peter Orris, a founding member of PNHP, is a 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 the 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.

James C. Mitchiner, MD, MPH, FACEP

James C. Mitchiner, MD, MPH, FACEP

Emergency

Region(s):
Specialty:

Dr. James Mitchiner is currently an attending emergency physician at St. Joseph Mercy Hospital in Ann Arbor, Michigan. In addition, he has an academic appointment at the University of Michigan Medical School.

A past president of the Michigan College of Emergency Physicians, Dr. Mitchiner has served the American College of Emergency Physicians as the chair of its State Legislative and Regulatory Committee, and as a member of the Task Force on Health Care and the Uninsured. In 2008 he served as president of the Washtenaw County Medical Society.

Dr. Mitchiner received his medical degree from the University of Illinois College of Medicine and received a master’s degree in health management and policy from the University of Michigan School of Public Health.

David Ansell, MD, MPH, FACP

David Ansell, MD, MPH, FACP

Internal Medicine

Region(s):
Specialty:

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 M. Fegan, MD, CHCQM, FACP

Claudia M. Fegan, MD, CHCQM, FACP

Internal Medicine

Region(s): ,
Specialty:

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.