Speakers

Richard Burr

United States Senator serving North Carolina

U.S. SENATE

First elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1994, Senator Burr served five terms in the House and is currently serving North Carolina in his third term in the U.S. Senate. During his time in the House, he led legislation modernizing the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and began his work to improve our nation’s
biodefense and pandemic preparedness capabilities.

In the Senate, he serves as Ranking Member of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. Promoting innovation in America’s health care system has been a priority for him throughout his time in Congress. Senator Burr has led on a number of significant legislative priorities, including the creation of today’s pandemic response framework through the passage and reauthorization of the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act (PAHPA), improving FDA’s ability to regulate cutting-edge treatments for patients, and consistently championing funding for medical innovation and research.

Protecting and honoring human and civil rights is another area where he has led legislatively. Senator Burr spearheaded the passage of the Stephen Beck, Jr. Achieving a Better Life Experience (ABLE) Act. This legislation allowed for individuals with disabilities to save money in their own name without losing critical benefits, including health care. In 2014, the ABLE Act was signed into law, and was widely regarded as the most significant legislative accomplishment for individuals with disabilities since the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). In 2016, he worked with the late civil rights leader, Representative John Lewis (D-GA) to reauthorize the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crimes Reauthorization Act. The passage of this bill provided a critical opportunity to right the wrongs committed against African Americans that were never investigated during the Civil Rights Era.

In addition to leading Republicans on the HELP Committee, Senator Burr also serves as a senior member of the Select Committee on Intelligence, the Finance Committee, and the Special Committee on Aging.

The son of a minister, Senator Burr and his family moved to Winston-Salem, North Carolina when he was a young child. He attended Wake Forest University on a football scholarship, and after graduating, he began his career far from the halls of Congress by spending seventeen years in business with Carswell Distributing, a wholesale commercial products company.

He also serves as a Board Member of Brenner Children’s Hospital and on the West Point Board of Visitors. Senator Burr and his wife, Brooke, have two sons. 

Susan Dentzer

Senior Policy Fellow

Duke-Margolis

Susan Dentzer is the Senior Policy Fellow at the Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy at Duke University. Based in Washington, DC, she works on a range of health policy issues including health system transformation, the use of artificial intelligence and related technologies in health care, bio-pharmaceuticals policy, and improving cancer care as well as maternity and infant care. Dentzer is the editor and lead author of the book, “Health Care Without Walls: A Roadmap for Reinventing U.S. Health Care”. Dentzer previously led the Network for Excellence in Health Innovation, a nonprofit that sought to advance innovation in health care. A longtime journalist, she has been on-air analyst on health issues with the PBS NewsHour and a commentator on health policy for National Public Radio. She wrote and hosted the 2015 PBS documentary, “Reinventing American Healthcare,” focusing on the innovations pioneered by the Geisinger Health System and spread to health systems across the nation.

Dentzer was formerly Senior Policy Adviser to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Editor-in Chief of the Health Policy Journal Health Affairs. From 1998-2008 she was the on-air health correspondent for the PBS NewsHour.

Dentzer is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine and the Council on Foreign Relations; a fellow of the National Academy of Social Insurance; and a fellow of the Hastings Center, a nonpartisan bioethics research institute. She is also on the boards of directors of the International Rescue Committee; Research!America; and the Public Health Institute. She is a member of the RAND Health Board of Advisors, the March of Dimes national public policy advisory board, and the board of the Women’s Health Activist Movement Global (WHAMglobal). She is a member of Women of Impact, and a former public member of the American Board of Medical Specialties.

Dentzer holds an honorary master’s degree from Dartmouth and an honorary doctorate from Muskingum University.

Jarrett Lewis

Partner

Public Opinion Strategies

Jarrett Lewis is a Partner at Public Opinion Strategies, a national political and public affairs research firm, whose clients include leading political figures, Fortune 500 companies, and major associations. The firm is also part of the bi-partisan research team that conducts the NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll. Jarrett’s work is heavily rooted in the health care industry and he has extensive experience conducting survey research and providing advisory services for large health systems and health care companies.

Jarrett was previously Executive Director of Health Policy at The Health Management Academy, a network of executive leaders from the 100-largest hospital systems across the US In that role he advised C-Suite hospital system executives on federal policy initiatives and strategy. He also created and led a business unit offering advisory services to health system executives using proprietary survey research data in areas of business development, marketing, budgeting and health policy. Additionally, he directed a quarterly health care survey of 1,500 consumers, sponsored and published by the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC). He regularly speaks to health system and health care company boards of directors and leadership teams on the topics of health policy and consumerism in health care.

Jarrett began his career at Public Opinion Strategies, providing survey research analysis to federal and state campaigns during the 2008 election cycle. He worked for Public Opinion Strategies again during the 2012 election cycle, serving as a strategist and pollster to the Romney for President Campaign from 2011-2012. In that role Jarrett provided in-depth analysis of internal survey research data to senior campaign officials, including over 300 surveys and 150 focus groups.

Jarrett is a RIVA-trained focus group moderator and has moderated or managed over 200 focus groups in his career. He has an MBA from the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University and a BA in Political Science from Clemson University, where he was a member of the men’s varsity soccer team. He lives in Alexandria, Virginia with his wife Elise and their son.

David Ridley, PhD

Faculty Director

Duke Health Sector Management

David Ridley, PhD is the Dr. and Mrs. Frank A. Riddick Professor of the Practice of Business. He is also the Faculty Director of Duke’s Health Sector Management. Ridley teaches in the daytime MBA, executive MBA, and Health Analytics programs. He received a PhD in economics from Duke University in 2001.

In his research, Ridley examines innovation and pricing in health care. To encourage development of new treatments for neglected diseases, Ridley (with Jeff Moe and Henry Grabowski) proposed the priority review voucher program which became law in the United States in 2007. Total voucher sales have exceeded one billion dollars. Ridley’s research appears in economics journals (Journal of Public Economics), medical journals (Journal of the American Medical Association), and scientific journals (Nature Reviews Drug Discovery).

Angela Wiles

Health Policy Director

U.S. Senator Richard Burr

Angela Wiles is the Health Policy Director for U.S. Senator Richard Burr (R-NC). She serves as the senior health care advisor to the Senator in his work on both the Health, Education, Labor, Pensions (HELP) Committee and the Committee
on Finance, covering health issues related to the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration, and other public health policies and programs.

Before joining Senator Burr’s team, Wiles worked at the American Action forum for former CBO Director Doug Holtz-Eakin and in Governor Nathan Deal’s Administration in Georgia.