Rachel Portman's deep health care policy, management and technical experience is highlighted by a career in the US Senate and private-sector consulting.
Rachel most recently served as the Deputy Health Policy Director for the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee for former US Senator Richard Burr, where Rachel oversaw the development and passage of the PREVENT Pandemics Act, which made significant changes to our nation's public health emergency preparedness and response framework taking in to account lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic. Prior to this role, Rachel covered Senator Burr's health care portfolio as a member of the Senate HELP Committee, Senate Committee on Finance and Senate Special Committee on Aging. She also led policy development for the Senator's welfare and childcare portfolios, including final passage of the Family First Prevention Services Act, the most comprehensive child welfare reform law in decades.
In both roles, Rachel was responsible for overseeing multiple policy areas as an advisor on the full health care portfolio ranging from Medicare and Medicaid policy to policies and programs affecting our nation's public health agencies, such as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
In the six years that Rachel worked on Capitol Hill, she met daily with executive-level management and principals across the health spectrum, as well as providers and patients, explaining how policy will impact or affect their company or interests in both the short- and long-term. She is also skilled in reviewing new legislative opportunities from varying stakeholder perspectives and working with colleagues on both sides of the aisle and both chambers of Congress to have bills signed into law. These include topics ranging from ensuring federal regulatory agencies have the necessary architecture to study, review, approve and pay for 21st century advances in science and technology, to obtaining accountability from federal public health agencies, and improving our nation's biodefense preparedness and response framework.
Rachel excels at reviewing, aggregating and analyzing large data sets and transforming the analysis into digestible and insightful deliverables for both internal and client-facing use.
Rachel is not a lawyer.
