Angela F. Braly
President & CEO, WellPoint Inc.

“When the government inserts itself into the private marketplace, there are unintended consequences. Ultimately it will reduce consumer choice and it will challenge the very drivers around health care value and innovation.”

Angela Braly is President & CEO of WellPoint Inc. and a member of the company’s Board of Directors. Braly assumed her responsibilities in June 2007, after serving as Executive VP, General Counsel and Chief Public Affairs Officer.

WellPoint is the nation's largest Health Benefits Company in terms of medical membership, with coverage for approximately 35 million Americans through its affiliated health plans. In 2008, WellPoint generated operating revenue in excess of $60 billion.

In 2008 Braly was ranked #4 on Forbes magazine’s “World’s Most Powerful Women” list and was ranked #5 on Fortune magazine’s list of the “50 Most Powerful Women.” She is one of only two women to lead a Fortune 35 company.

Braly received her Juris Doctor from Southern Methodist University School of Law and her undergraduate degree from Texas Tech University.

Bill Frist, M.D.
Professor of Business and Medicine, Vanderbilt University
Former Majority Leader, U.S. Senator

"Health care should be a patient-centered, consumer-driven, provider-friendly health care system fueled by information, choice, and control.”

Dr. William Frist is a former U.S. Senator from Tennessee. He was elected to congress in 1994 and served as the Senate Majority Leader (2003-2007), Senate Republican Leader (2002-2007) and Chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee (2001-2003).

Dr. Frist is a graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Medical School. He’s worked as a heart and lung transplant surgeon and Director at Vanderbilt University Medical Center where he is currently a Professor of Business and Medicine. Previously he was senior fellow and chief resident in cardiac transplant service and cardiothoracic surgery at Stanford University School of Medicine.

Jennifer M. Granholm
Governor of Michigan

“I don’t know that General Motors and Chrysler would even be in bankruptcy today if we had had a uniquely American solution to the cost of health care.”

Jennifer M. Granholm was elected governor in 2002 and re-elected in 2006. She began her career in public service as a judicial clerk for Michigan's 6th Circuit Court of Appeals. She became a federal prosecutor in Detroit in 1990 and was elected Michigan's first female attorney general in 1998.

Since becoming governor, she has worked to grow and diversify Michigan's economy, create jobs, ensure world-class educational opportunities for every Michigan student, create universal access to affordable health care, and stand up for Michigan workers and families during tough economic times.

Granholm serves as chair of the Health and Human Services Committee and is co-chair of the Health Care Task Force of the National Governors Association, and is chair of the Midwestern Governors Association. She’s a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley and Harvard Law School.

John C. Lechleiter, Ph.D.
CEO & President, Eli Lilly

“We need to encourage our political leaders to fix what is broken, but we also need to make sure we don’t break what still works.”

John C. Lechleiter, Ph.D, is Chairman, President and CEO of Eli Lilly and Company. Lechleiter chairs the company’s operations committee, as well as its executive committee. Lechleiter served previously as President and COO of Lilly, beginning in 2005, when he also joined the board. In 2004, he became Lilly’s Executive Vice President, Pharmaceutical Operations.

Lechleiter received a Bachelor of Science degree summa cum laude in chemistry from Xavier University (Cincinnati, Ohio). He studied organic chemistry as a National Science Foundation Fellow at Harvard University, where he received his master’s and doctorate degrees.

He’s a member of the American Chemical Society, serves on the Executive Committee of the Board of Directors of Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) and is a member of the Business Roundtable and the Business Council.

Michael Milken
Chairman, The Milken Institute
Chairman, FasterCures

“If the average weight of Americans simply returned to early 1990s levels, the reduction in chronic-disease costs would boost our economy annually by an estimated $1 trillion – at no cost to the government.”

Named one of the 75 Most Influential People of the 21st Century by Esquire magazine, Michael Milken is in his fourth decade of driving social change. It was in 1972, three years after Milken began a legendary career on Wall Street, when his wife told him her mother had been diagnosed with breast cancer. That marked the beginning of his search for medical solutions, which has played as large a role in his life as his better-known innovations in finance.

In 1982, Milken formalized his previous philanthropy by co-founding the Milken Family Foundation. Now in its 27th year, the Foundation has supported worldwide research on pediatric neurology, nutrition, leukemia, brain cancer and breast cancer. Milken, himself a survivor of prostrate cancer, founded the Prostate Cancer Foundation – the world’s largest source of funds for prostrate cancer research.

Milken is a summa cum laude graduate of the University of California at Berkeley and received his MBA from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School.

Dr. Steven Nissen
Chairman, Department of Cardiovascular Medicine
Cleveland Clinic

“There is no substitute for a systematic approach that involves all sectors of the health care economy…I believe that we need a better government safety net.”

Steven Nissen, MD, is the Chairman of the Robert and Suzanne Tomsich Department of Cardiovascular Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic. Prior to this, he served nine years as Vice-Chairman of the Department of Cardiology.

Dr. Nissen’s research during the last two decades has focused on the application of intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) imaging for the assessment of progression and regression of coronary atherosclerosis.

Dr. Nissen was selected for the Outstanding Scientist Award by the Cleveland Clinic in 2004.

In 2007, Dr. Steven Nissen was named by TIME Magazine as "one of the 100 most influential people in the world” and the same year was named as one of the "country’s 30 most powerful forces in business and finance” by SmartMoney Magazine.

Dr. Nissen earned his medical degree from the University of Michigan School of Medicine. He completed his residency at the University of California, Davis in Sacramento, and Cardiology Fellowship at the University of Kentucky Medical Center.

Dr. J. James Rohack, MD
President, American Medical Association

"The status quo that is 50 million Americans not having health insurance, a system that has administrative waste and as a result drives up premiums so that it is unaffordable for many patients — that is just not acceptable.”

J. James Rohack, MD, a Senior Staff Cardiologist at Scott & White Clinic in Temple, Texas, is also President of the AMA.  Dr. Rohack has been a member of the AMA Board of Trustees since 2001 and served as chair from 2004 to 2005.

Dr. Rohack also served as Treasurer of the Board of Commissioners of the Joint Commission, chaired the National Advisory Council to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and is one of the principals of the Hospital Quality Alliance. In 2009 he was voted No. 20 in the 50 Most Powerful Physician Executives in Healthcare by the readers of Modern Healthcare and Modern Physician magazines.

At Scott & White Clinic, Dr. Rohack serves as the Director of the Center for Healthcare Policy and as the Medical Director for system improvement of the Scott & White Health Plan—a not-for-profit health plan that is nationally recognized for quality health care delivery.

Dr. Rohack received his BS degree from the University of Texas at El Paso and his MD degree from the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston.