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Staff Bios
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Elizabeth Abbott joined Health Access in January 2006 as their Project Director where she focuses on federal health programs and the impact they have on beneficiaries and public policy in California. She previously served as the Regional Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) in Region IX which serves the states of California, Arizona, Nevada, Hawaii, and the Far Pacific (including the Pacific Trust Territories of Guam, American Samoa, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.) She was responsible for the oversight of State Medicaid agencies, State survey and provider certification operations, State Children’s’ Health Insurance Programs, and managed care organizations. The San Francisco Region spans a vast geographic area, has one of the most culturally diverse populations in the nation, serves over 10 million beneficiaries, and has a programmatic budget exceeding $30 billion per year. Ms. Abbott joined CMS as the Associate Regional Administrator for Medicare in 1993 where she managed technical, clinical, and financial staff and oversaw Medicare contractors that serve providers and beneficiaries in the West. Prior to joining CMS, she worked in progressively more responsible positions with the Social Security Administration (SSA) in 17 field and regional offices in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, and throughout California. Ms. Abbott has a B.A. in psychology from the University of Redlands in Redlands, California and has done graduate work in public administration at the University of Southern California.
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Beth Capell, Capell & Assoc., provides policy analysis, legislative advocacy, and other strategic input to Health Access and to other consumer, labor and public interest organizations on health care issues. Ms. Capell has headed Capell & Assoc. and represented Health Access since 1996. During those years, Health Access fought for and won the HMO Patient Bill of Rights as well as expansions of health coverage, including the creation of Healthy Families. Ms. Capell has worked in and around the state capitol since 1997, working on legislative staff, in the executive branch, and in campaign consulting. She has been a legislative advocate since 1984 working on health care issues. Ms. Capell has a Ph.D. in political science from the University of California at Berkeley and has also served as a Visiting Scholar, research associate and teaching assistant at that campus.
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Norma Martinez-HoSang, our Southern California Regional Organizer, has been a community and labor organizer and trainer in the Los Angeles region for the last ten years. She served as a field organizer and lead organizer with Californians for Justice, overseeing several large-scale precinct and voter education efforts across Southern California. Most recently, she served as lead organizer for the California Nurses Association, leading several successful union election campaigns. She is a former board member of the National Organizer's Alliance.
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Nancy Morton is our Finance Manager and has been with Health Access since 2001. Nancy has been involved in the cash management field for over fifteen years, first as a banker and most recently as a consultant. Prior to becoming involved with banking and cash management she worked in various accounting capacities. Nancy earned a BA in English from UCLA and has completed graduate courses in accounting and business at San Francisco State and Golden Gate University. She earned the Certified Cash Manager designation in 1989.
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Bruce Occena is the director for our Video Medical Interpretation Project, working to implementing this new technology to assist patients in getting linguistically appropriate care. Working out of our Oakland office, he comes to us from running the Substance Abuse Program at the San Francisco Department of Public Health, and decades of political and programmatic work.
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Rick Pavich, the Director of Operations and Development, brings sixteen years of nonprofit experience with advocacy and political organizations. He began his career as the fundraising manger for a pro-choice political action committee in Washington, DC, followed by four years at the Human Rights Campaign. He went on to World Wildlife Fund where he administered the Partners in Conservation program for major donors. In 1998, Pavich came to California to become the Director of Donor Relations for Lutheran Social Service of Northern California, a faith-based social service organization, with an array of program including groundbreaking work in San Francisco assisting homeless people living with AIDS, and extensive transitional housing programs in Sacramento. For three years, he served as the Executive Director of the National AIDS Memorial Grove, a 7.5-acre memorial honoring all lives touched by AIDS. The memorial, located in Golden Gate Park, was created through a public/private partnership between his organization and the City of San Francisco and the Department of Parks and Recreation. Pavich has been credentialed as a Certified Fund-Raising Professional (CFRE) since 1997, and obtained a Master of Nonprofit Administration degree from the University of San Francisco in 2002.
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Hanh Kim Quach is a Health Care Policy Coordinator for Health Access. Before joining the organization, she worked as a journalist for nearly 9 years. She started her career covering rodeos, Easter egg hunts, and homicides in Tucson, Arizona, while finishing college at the University of Arizona. After graduation, she joined The Fresno Bee, where she wrote about public schools in the southern San Joaquin Valley. Her final six years in journalism were spent in Sacramento as a Capitol reporter for the Orange County Register, where she covered a variety of issues which included workers’ compensation insurance, the state budget, collective bargaining among physicians and other state issues. She lives in Sacramento with her springer spaniel, Pote.
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Jessica Rothhaar, our Northern California Regional Organizer, has been a lobbyist, policy advocate and community organizer for 20 years. She has worked on a broad variety of issues affecting public health, child and family well-being and community development, and has lobbied on federal, state and local budget issues in California, Washington, D.C. and London, England. Prior to joining Health Access, she ran her own consulting firm specializing in policy advocacy for nonprofits and foundations in California.
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Anthony Wright serves as Executive Director for Health Access California, the statewide health care consumer advocacy coalition, working on behalf of the insured and uninsured, made up of over 200 organizations representing seniors, children, working families, people with disabilities, immigrants, people of faith, labor, and communities of color.
Under Wright’s leadership since 2002, Health Access has been a leader in efforts to fight health care budget cuts, to expand both employer-based coverage and public insurance programs, to advance consumer protections, and to address the causes of medical debt. For example, his work on hospital overcharging and abusive billing and collections practices led to both to legislative action and hospital guidelines on the issue. Recently, he served as co-chair and campaign manager for the No on 78/Yes on 79 initiative effort, facing the prescription drug industry and the most expensive ballot campaign in the nation’s history.
Wright’s background is as a consumer advocate and community organizer, and he has been widely quoted in local and national media on a range of issues. He served as Program Director for New Jersey Citizen Action. As coordinator of New Jersey’s health care consumer coalition, he ran successful campaigns to win HMO patient protections, defeat for-profit takeovers of nonprofit hospitals and Blue Cross Blue Shield, pass a law to govern hospital conversions and acquisitions, and expand coverage for low- and moderate-income children and parents.
Wright also worked at the Center for Media Education in Washington, DC, The Nation magazine in New York, and in Vice President Gore's office in the White House. Born and raised in the Bronx, Wright graduated from Amherst College magna cum laude in both English and Sociology.
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