Chiquita Brooks-LaSure

Chiquita Brooks-LaSure is the founder of Willingbridge Strategies and one of the nation’s most experienced health policy leaders, with more than 25 years navigating government, consulting, and the nonprofit sector.

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She most recently served as Administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), where she oversaw programs providing coverage to more than 160 million Americans and supervised $1.4 trillion in annual health care spending—representing 25% of the entire federal budget. As the federal government’s chief health care executive, she led an agency of over 6,000 employees and 30,000 contractors responsible for Medicare, Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, and the Health Insurance Marketplaces.

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Under her leadership, CMS doubled enrollment in Affordable Care Act coverage from 12 to 24 million people, expanded and strengthened Medicaid, raised national maternal health standards, and oversaw the first-ever Medicare drug price negotiations delivering billions in savings for people and the government. Her work required regular engagement with Fortune 100 CEOs, state governors, Congressional leadership, patient advocacy organizations, and health care providers—each with different priorities and perspectives on how the system should work.

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Earlier in her career, she advised health plans, hospital systems, states, and advocacy organizations at leading consulting firms, and played a central role in both the passage and implementation of the Affordable Care Act while serving in Congress and the Department of Health and Human Services.