Christopher C Jennings

Chris Jennings is a three decades-long health policy veteran of the Congress, the White House, and the private sector. He currently serves as president of Jennings Policy Strategies (JPS), a nationally respected health care consulting firm. He and his staff specialize in assisting foundations and purchasers (and those aligned with them) to develop and implement policies that ensure higher quality, more affordable health care for all Americans. Since he left the White House in 2001, as the Senior Health Care Advisor to President Clinton, he has been a senior advisor to four Democratic Presidential campaigns including Senator Hillary Clinton in 2008, served as the health care policy advisor to the 2008 Democratic Platform Drafting Committee, chaired the Clinton Global Initiative’s Health Working Group, and serves as the co-director of the Bipartisan Policy Center’s (BPC) Health Project under former U.S. Senate Majority Leaders’ Tom Daschle and Bill Frist. Currently, in addition to his consulting work for clients and investors, he provides strategic guidance and staff support to a number of foundation-supported Affordable Care Act (ACA) implementation projects. He is also a frequent contributor on health reform issues to the New England Journal of Medicine. Prior to his current work, Jennings held senior positions in the Clinton White House for eight years. As President Clinton’s chief health policy advisor for six years, he made major contributions toward the enactment and implementation of the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, the Work Incentive Improvement Act and a host of major Medicare reforms. In the first two years of the Clinton Administration, he served as senior advisor to Health Care Financing Administration Administrator (now CMS) and congressional liaison to First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton during her work on the Health Security Act. Before his work in the White House, Jennings served in the U.S. Senate for nearly a decade (from 1983 to 1993) as chief health advisor for three Senators, including his home state Senator John Glenn as well as Special Committee on Aging Chairman David Pryor. During this period, he served on the Pepper Commission and contributed to major legislation to expand coverage for low-income seniors and children, to contain prescription drug costs, and to ensure high quality, affordable health care access for Americans residing in rural communities.