DR Lanhee
Chen
Speaker Profile
Lanhee Chen Ph.D. was appointed by President Barack Obama, and confirmed by the United States Senate, to serve as a member of the Social Security Advisory Board. He is the David and Diane Steffy Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution; Director of Domestic Policy Studies and lecturer in the Public Policy Program at Stanford University; lecturer in law at Stanford Law School; and an affiliate of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford. His current research focuses on health policy, retirement security policy and politics.
A veteran of several high-profile political campaigns, he has also served in government, the private sector and academia. Most recently, he was the senior adviser on policy to the National Republican Senatorial Committee during the 2014 election. He frequently provides policy and political commentary on television networks, including Bloomberg, CNBC, CNN, FOX News, and MSNBC.
Chen was the policy director for the Romney-Ryan 2012 presidential campaign, as well as Governor Romney’s chief policy adviser. He was also a senior strategist for the campaign and the person responsible for developing the campaign's domestic and foreign policy. He advised Romney on every major public policy challenge facing the United States and worked with a variety of stakeholders, including the congressional leadership, industry and business interests, and policy experts, to shape the campaign's issues agenda. In 2012, he was named one of Politico's '50 Politicos to Watch'.
Chen also served as the deputy campaign manager and policy director of Steve Poizner’s 2010 California gubernatorial campaign. He was the domestic policy director of Governor Romney’s first presidential bid in 2008, and a health policy adviser to the Bush-Cheney reelection campaign in 2004. In the Bush administration, Chen was a senior official at the US Department of Health and Human Services. His private-sector experience includes having worked as an associate attorney with the international law firm of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP, where he practiced business litigation. He was the Winnie Neubauer Visiting Fellow in Health Policy Studies at the Heritage Foundation and worked as a health policy advocate for a major business group in Washington, DC.
An eight-time winner of Harvard University's Certificate of Distinction in Teaching, Chen's scholarship has appeared in or been cited by several of the nation's top political science journals. Chen currently serves on the Board of Trustees of the Junior Statesmen Foundation and the Advisory Board of the Partnership for the Future of Medicare. He is a member of the Committee of 100, a membership organisation of prominent Chinese Americans. Chen is also a senior adviser and member of the International Advisory Council and the Health Advisory Board at APCO Worldwide.
Chen earned his Ph.D. and AM in political science from Harvard University, his JD cum laude from Harvard Law School, and his AB magna cum laude in government from Harvard College. He is a member of the State Bar of California.
Topics
Speaker Topics
- Obamacare, Five Years Later: Diagnoses and Prescriptions
- U.S. Economic Policy
- U.S. Healthcare Reform
- U.S. Healthcare System in Comparative Perspective
- U.S. Policymaking
- U.S. Politics
- U.S. Relations with East Asia and the Geopolitics of East Asia
Topic Synopses
Obamacare, Five Years Later: Diagnoses and PrescriptionsPresident Obama's signature healthcare bill has been the source of considerable controversy since its passage in 2010. Five years later, one of the nation's leading health policy experts, Hoover Institution Fellow and Stanford University professor Lanhee Chen, breaks down the impacts the law will have on American businesses and consumers.
Chen served as Governor Mitt Romney's chief policy adviser during the 2012 campaign. He was responsible for the development of the campaign's policy agenda and fundamentally understands the ins-and-outs of the Affordable Care Act like few others. In his presentation, Chen will reveal the law's unintended consequences, discuss policy changes that can help to mitigate them, and provide insights into the political outlook for the law. His blend of political and policy expertise — gained from service on three presidential campaigns, work in academic and policy settings, and at the most senior levels of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services — will provide unique insights into the health care law, where it's headed, and how it will affect our country and its economy.
