David Reynolds, a longtime health care leader in Vermont, has rejoined the Office of US Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) as Sanders takes up the gavel as chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. Reynolds, who formerly served as health policy adviser to Sanders, will be focusing on policy to strengthen access to primary health care and address workforce shortages across the country.
“My whole career has involved working on access to health care,” said Reynolds. “With Senator Sanders now chairing the Senate health committee, we have an opportunity and an obligation to improve primary care and address health workforce shortages.”
For more than three decades, Reynolds has worked to strengthen health care in Vermont and across the nation. He founded and led Northern Counties Health Care in 1976, Vermont’s first federally qualified health center. Today, NCHC provides quality care to more than one-third of Vermonters in its region, including dental care, primary care, home health care, and hospice services.
Reynolds joined Sanders’ office in 2007 after Sanders was first elected to the Senate. In that role, Reynolds assisted Sanders in pushing forward his signature provisions of the federal Affordable Care Act, a multibillion-dollar investment in mandatory funding to support community health centers through the creation of the Community Health Center Fund.