Grace-Marie Turner
President
Grace-Marie Turner is president of the Galen Institute, a public policy research organization that she founded in 1995 to promote an informed debate over free-market ideas for health reform.
She has been instrumental in developing and promoting ideas for reform to transfer power over health care decisions to doctors and patients. She speaks and writes extensively about incentives to promote a more competitive, patient-centered marketplace in the health sector.
- She testifies regularly before Congress and advises senior government officials, governors, and state legislators on health policy.
- She was named by House Speaker John Boehner in 2013 to serve as a member of the Long Term Care Commission.
- Previously, Grace-Marie served for a three-year term on the National Advisory Board for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, and she served as a member of the Medicaid Commission, making recommendations to modernize and improve Medicaid.
She has been published in hundreds of major newspapers, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and USA Today, and has appeared on ABC’s 20/20 and on hundreds of radio and television programs. She is a co-author of Why ObamaCare Is Wrong for America, published by HarperCollins in 2011, and editor of Empowering Health Care Consumers through Tax Reform. Grace-Marie speaks extensively in the U.S. and abroad, including at the London School of Economics, Oxford University, and the Gregorian University at the Vatican.
Grace-Marie is founder and facilitator of the Health Policy Consensus Group which serves as a forum for analysts from market-oriented think tanks around the country to analyze and develop policy recommendations.
She received the 2007 Outstanding Achievement Award for Promotion of Consumer Driven Health Care from Consumer Health World. In the mid-1990s, Grace-Marie served as executive director of the National Commission on Economic Growth and Tax Reform. For 12 years, she was president of Arnett & Co., a health policy analysis and communications firm. Her early career was in politics and journalism where she received numerous awards for her writings on politics and economics.
Doug Badger
Senior Fellow
Doug Badger’s career in public policy spans more than three decades and includes stints as a policy adviser to the White House, the U.S. Senate, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Social Security Administration.
As a senior White House adviser to President George W. Bush, Doug developed the Administration’s proposal for adding prescription drug coverage to Medicare and represented the White House in negotiations with Congress that resulted in enactment of the Medicare Modernization Act. He also advised the President on other health-related matters, including Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement issues and the creation of health savings accounts.
Doug later served as Deputy Assistant to the President for Legislative Affairs, where he helped formulate Administration policy and legislative strategy on a broad range of issues, including health care, energy, taxes, financial services, pensions and employee benefits, intellectual property, trade, and telecommunications.
After leaving the White House, Doug became a partner at The Nickles Group, where his practice included where his practice included health care, intellectual property, and financial services. He had also been a partner at Washington Council Ernst & Young, where he had a similar practice.
Doug also served for a decade as a U.S. Senate aide, serving as Chief of Staff to Assistant Majority Leader Don Nickles and Staff Director of the Senate Republican Policy Committee.
Doug is now retired but still offers his views on policy and politics as a contributor to The Hill and in a blog called Doug’s Brief Case.
Kirby Greissing
Policy Analyst
Kirby Greissing is a 7th generation Washingtonian, who grew up in McLean, Virginia and attended Stone Ridge School of the Sacred Heart in Bethesda, Maryland and Georgetown University where she received her Bachelor’s degree in Health Care Management and Policy. The emphasis of her academic work was health and economic policy and global health systems.
She joined the Galen Institute in July, 2014 where she focuses on the evolving health care system in the United Sates and the impact of the Affordable Care Act on patients and other stakeholders in the health ecosystem. In addition to her monitoring and analyzing critical legislative and regulatory threats and opportunities, Kirby assists the Galen leadership in convening state and federal policy leaders as well as other experts to deliberate and develop critical solutions to current and emerging health policy issues. Her work includes drafting and developing materials important to articulating the Galen Institute Policy Papers.
Prior to being a policy analyst at the Galen Institute, Kirby worked as an intern for Senator Pat Roberts (R-KS) from May 2013-May 2014. She also interned at the National Institute of Health’s Center for Cancer Research as well as the Children’s Inn.
Kara Jones
Policy Analyst
Kara Jones is a policy analyst at the Galen Institute, where she contributes research, policy analysis, and writing to various projects, including Galen Institute white papers. Kara aggregates and uploads breaking news and commentary on the health care law to ObamaCareWatch.org daily. She is in charge of the Galen Institute’s social media and produces a weekly newsletter highlighting the most popular and important articles from ObamaCareWatch.
Prior to joining the Galen Institute, Kara served as a research intern at the American Health Policy Institute, where she examined the impact of health policy on large employers’ ability to provide quality, affordable health care to employees and their dependents.
Kara also worked as an editorial intern for Townhall Media, where she wrote daily political commentary pieces for the Townhall Tipsheet. She published a feature Townhall Magazine about the business impact of the Affordable Care Act’s employer mandate.