Texas

Contact Information

Health Care for All Texas
Website: http://www.healthcareforalltexas.org/

Media Contact

Ana Malinow
713.873.2597
amalinow@bcm.tmc.edu

Ana Malinow was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina and earned a BA from the University of California at Davis and a master’s degree in Creative Writing before completing her medical education at Case Western Reserve University. She completed residency in pediatrics at Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital in Cleveland and practiced there as a pediatrician for 5 years, at a time when the patient to pediatrician ratio was 10,000:1.

She moved to Houston 10 years ago. She is assistant professor of pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine and attending physician in the Pediatric Emergency Center at the Ben Taub General Hospital, where most of her patients are uninsured.

In response to the lack of health insurance and access to the thousands of children that she treats, she and then-third year medical student Lauren Oshman, co-founded Health Care for All Texas, a grassroots organization that promotes single payer universal health care through education and policy setting. Health Care for All Texas endorses HR 676 (“Medicare for All”) as the only solution to the health care crisis. She is President of Physicians for a National Health Program.

Leonard A. Zwelling, MD, MBA
713-859-8714
lzwellin@mdanderson.org

Dr. Zwelling is a Special Assistant to the Senior Vice President of Business Affairs and a Professor of Medicine and Pharmacology at the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas. He was previously the Vice Presidnet for Research Administration at M. D. Anderson and is currently an active member in PNHP, The Metropolitan Organization, The Harris County Health Alliance, Doctors for Change and a member of the American Leadership Forum’s Med Class 2. He is a board certified internist and medical oncologist and a lab-based investigator. His primary interests in health policy are advancing the single payer system and improving access to llife-saving clinical cancer trials.

James E. (Jim) Alexander, Jr.
817.645.4787
jealexjr@aol.com

Dr. Jim Alexander graduated from Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons, board certified as a general surgeon by the American Board of Surgery, Board certified by the American Board of Quality Assurance and Utilization Review Physicians (ABQAURP), and is a 1996 graduate of the InterMountain Health Care Advanced Training Program in Health Care Delivery Improvement. He is a Captain (O-6), United States Naval Reserve, Retired.

Dr. Alexander has been a healthcare issues consultant with HCM since January, 2002.

He served for 5 years (1997 - 2002) as the Medicare Medical Director for the Texas Medicare program. In this full-time position he was responsible for the following: formulation of Medicare local medical policy for Texas, Colorado, and New Mexico Medicare Part A and Texas Medicare Part B. For more than 3 years prior to the above position Dr. Alexander was Associate Medicare Medical Director and additionally performed Associate Medical Director duties for the commercial health insurance division of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas. Prior to assuming these administrative medicine duties, he practiced clinical medicine and surgery as a general surgeon in the U.S. Navy for 7 years and in a private practice multi-specialty group for over 10 years.

State Organizations Endorsing HR676

• Health Care for All Texas

Local Unions Endorsing HR676

• Texas AFL-CIO
• Austin Central Labor Council, Austin, Texas
• El Paso Central Labor Council, El Paso, Texas
• San Antonio Central Labor Council, San Antonio, Texas
• Texas Building Trades Council
• Local 6186, Texas State Employees Union/Communications Workers of America (TSEU/CWA)
• Texas Alliance for Retired Americans (ARA)
• Retirees Club of Local 848, United Auto Workers (UAW), Grand Prairie, TX
• Smith County Central Labor Council, Tyler, TX