Honorary Co-Chairs

Since its founding in 1991, the Alliance for Health Policy has had a longstanding tradition of working with honorary bipartisan Congressional leaders who serve as a sounding board for the Alliance and provide insight on current legislative topics, helping to ensure our programming is representative of multiple perspectives.

• Senator Roy Blunt (R-MO)
• Senator Benjamin Cardin (D-MD)
• Senator Susan Collins (R-ME)
• Senator William Frist, M.D. (R-TN)
• Senator Nancy Kassebaum Baker (R-KS)

*Honorary co-chairs from the House of Representatives were added in 2018

Senator John “Jay” Rockefeller IV (D-WV) served five terms as a Democratic senator from West Virginia and was founder and honorary co-chairman of the Alliance for Health Policy until he retired from the Senate in 2014. During his Senate tenure, Sen. Rockefeller chaired the U.S. Bipartisan Commission on the Future of Health Care (Pepper Commission) and the National Commission on Children. Under his leadership, the children’s commission became a model for bipartisan lawmaking on children’s education, welfare, and health care issues. Sen. Rockefeller was also chairman of the Finance Committee’s Health Care Subcommittee, and chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, among his other committee assignments.

Senator John C. “Jack” Danforth (R-MO) served three terms as the Republican senator from Missouri and was co-founder and honorary co-chair of the Alliance. Sen. Danforth served on three key committees, including the Committee on Finance, Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, and the Select Committee on Intelligence. His major legislative initiatives were in the areas of international trade, telecommunications, health care, research and development, transportation, and civil rights. After his tenure in the Senate, he represented the United States as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and was appointed as a Special Envoy to Sudan in 2001.