Meet our Leadership Team
Oregon Single Payer Advocates is lead by veterans of the movement for single payer health care over the past two decades. They have worked with numerous grassroots and professional organizations. These leaders share the perspective that never have so many Oregonians been mobilized to support this long overdue reform.
Mary Lou Hennrich, Portand & Cove, Health Care for All Oregon board
Mary Lou is the Health Care for All Oregon (HCAO) board liaison with many faith congregations and denominations who are members or endorsers of HCAO and universal access to healthcare as a moral imperative. Ms. Hennrich is retired from a nearly 50 year career in public health and healthcare advocacy and policy – a nurse and Assistant Director of Public Health, Multnomah County Health Department where she founded School Based Health Centers, managed County Primary Care Clinics serving 40,000 low income vulnerable individuals and families who lacked insurance and finances to access care from the private healthcare providers. She was the founding CEO of CareOregon, a fully capitated health plan for the Oregon Health Plan—OHP, and served in this capacity from 1994-2003 when she became Executive Director of the Oregon Public Health Institute. She retired from official capacities in 2014. She also serves on the Oregon Women’s Investment Network (WINPAC) that endorses and provides financial support to pro-choice women candidates seeking statewide elected office for the first time.
Lee Mercer, Silverton, leader of business outreach for Health Care for All Oregon
Lee Mercer was formerly board president of Health Care for All Oregon and Health Care for All Oregon-Action and is currently on the Executive Team (and former Director) of the Main Street Alliance of Oregon. For 19 years he has done legislative advocacy, outreach and education on healthcare, poverty, hunger and economic issues with Main Street Alliance, Oregon Center for Public Policy and Second Harvest Food Bank of Santa Cruz County (California). He co-chaired the California Hunger Action Coalition and was part of the leadership team of the Human Services Coalition of Oregon. At OCPP he staffed Oregonians for Working Families, a coalition to increase the state Earned Income Tax Credit. Before entering the nonprofit world, Lee was a business owner for 20 years, owning and operating movie theaters in California and Nevada. He is also a writer and has done video and film production.
Charlie Swanson, Eugene, president of Health Care for All Oregon-Action
Charlie represented Health Care for All Oregon (HCAO) on the Universal Access to Healthcare Workgroup. He is president and chair of the legislative committee of Health Care for All Oregon-Action, and has been involved in submitting recent versions of HCAO’s bills for consideration by the legislature and with other legislative work of HCAO since 2012. Charlie is the Platform Chair of the Democratic Party of Lane County. He was a physics instructor at Lane Community College, a math, physics, and chemistry teacher in Oregon high schools, and a computer programmer at IBM in Rochester, Minnesota.