ST. JOHNSBURY — The town’s newly re-elected moderator, who has decades of service in health care and has been called the “Godfather of Vermont Health Centers,” is returning to U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders’ staff to support the senator’s chairmanship of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee.
David Reynolds, who received 663 out of 666 votes to return as town moderator on Town Meeting Day last week, will rejoin Sanders and be tasked with helping form policy to strengthen access to primary health care and address workforce shortages across the country.
Reynolds founded Northern Counties Health Care in 1976. It was Vermont’s first Federally Qualified Health Center. Today, NCHC provides dental, primary, home health, and hospice care. He led the organization for over 30 years.
An award granted by NCHC is named after Reynolds and his wife, Nancy. The Reynolds Award is intended to honor a lifetime of service by the Reynolds family to Northern Counties Health Care. People with exceptional and longstanding service to the organization and its mission to provide compassionate care are eligible.
In 2010, Reynolds received the Cornell Scott Excellence in Leadership Award at the National Community Health Conference. He is a past recipient of a Pew Foundation Fellowship in Health Policy (1984) and an International Leadership Fellowship from the Kellogg Foundation (1995).
Reynolds joined the state government in 2011 when the Green Mountain Care Board was created and charged with controlling the state’s health care costs.
In 2013, he was Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin’s deputy director of healthcare reform policy when the governor worked on a single-payer healthcare system for the state. When Reynolds left that position that year, at age 66, he said he was “semi-retiring.”
His new role in health care policy work 1o years later will be his second time working with Sen. Sanders.
Reynolds joined Sanders’ office in 2007 as Senior Policy Advisor for Health after Sanders was first elected to the Senate. Reynolds helped the senator author provisions of the federal Affordable Care Act, calling for a multi-billion-dollar investment in funding to support community health centers by creating the Community Health Center Fund.
At the time Sanders first brought Reynolds onto his staff, he said, “In my view, David is one of the most knowledgeable people in the state of Vermont on health-care matters and is one of the leading experts in America on federally qualified health centers … [Reynolds] is going to be my key health-care adviser and will help us move Vermont and America to universal health care.”
Reynolds shared at the time, “(Sen. Sanders and I) share a common philosophy about wanting universal health care for America,” Reynolds said. “[Sanders] is very passionate about community health care.”
Sixteen years later, with Sanders as chair of the health committee, Reynolds said he wants to help improve primary care and address health workforce shortages.
“I am excited to help make Vermonters’ lives better and thank Senator Sanders for the opportunity to work with him again,” Reynolds said.
Sanders recently called for expanding community health centers during remarks to Advocates for Community Health. “Community health centers are one of the success stories of our broken health care system,” the senator said. “We must expand these programs so that every American can access the primary health care, dental care, mental health counseling, and low-cost prescription drugs that they desperately need.”
The plan is for Reynolds to commute between Vermont and Washington.
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