Lynn Cheney, Treasurer
Blue Hill
Lynn is a former business owner and corporate executive. Since her retirement she has served as treasurer and board member of the Blue Hill Public Library and is a founding member of the Peninsula Free Health Services. She became a Certified ACA Navigator in 2014. Lynn grew up in a Navy family, living in and out of the country. After leaving Wellesley College, she remained in Massachusetts, marrying and raising two daughters. She spent 33 years at Comrex Corporation, a broadcast equipment manufacturer, moving to Blue Hill when she retired in 2006. Lynn joined the Maine AllCare Board in 2018 and was the leader of the Downeast Chapter from 2017 to 2018. She serves on the Legislative and Policy Committee.
“Running a business, it was increasingly difficult and costly to find adequate health coverage for my employees. The small businesses as well as the hundreds of self-employed Mainers I’ve worked with as an ACA Navigator during the last four years confirm that the situation has only worsened. It is time for publicly funded, universal healthcare to allow us to control costs while covering everyone."
Les Fossel
Alna
Les operates Restoration Resources, Maine’s premier historic building restoration company, founded in 1975 with 13 employees. He consults for numerous organizations and individuals around New England. His award-winning work has been featured in numerous publications.
A former Republican legislator, his Maine legislative service included: Moderate Caucus Chair, Judiciary Committee, Government Oversight Committee, Insurance & Financial Services Committee, Health & Human Services Committee, Congressional Reapportionment Committee, Healthcare Reform Select Committee. Les serves or has served on the boards of LincolnHealth, the Morris Farm Trust, DaPonte String Quartet, Deck House School, Wiscasset & Quebec Railroad, the Lincoln County Dental Board, Eldercare Network of Lincoln County, and on the Advisory Board of Maine Preservation. Les joined the Maine AllCare Board in 2015 and is been a member of the Legislative and Policy committee.
“Maine (among the 50 states) ranks in the top 10 in healthcare costs, but in the bottom 10 in wage income. We are the outlier. Every other part of our society has been starved by the ever-increasing financial demands of health care in Maine: wages, infrastructure, education, the environment, and business. It’s time to develop a system of universal health care coverage for Maine."
Karen Foster, Board Chair
Portland
BS in Occupational Therapy, University of New Hampshire
Karen had a long career at Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Maine, where she held several senior management positions. She retired in 2000 and set out as an independent consultant specializing in nonprofit organizational structure, planning and governance. She also served as interim executive director for several Maine nonprofits in public health, the arts, and civil liberties. In addition to serving on many nonprofit boards, she was a founder of Maine AllCare in 2010 and was treasurer for five years. She rejoined the board in 2020.
"We are a small organization spreading an important message to the public and policy makers. If we can help move this state toward a system of good accessible and affordable health care for everyone, we will be a healthier and more equal society. That’s a cause I believe in."
Henk Goorhuis, MD, FACEP
Auburn
BS and MD, Loma Linda University, Loma Linda, California;
Residency in Emergency Medicine, Loma Linda University Medical Center
Henk was an emergency medicine physician for 25+ years, emergency department director in New York for two years, and served on a Brunswick, Maine, hospital board for five years. He moved to Maine 23 years ago, and has worked at several Maine urban and rural hospitals. Henk joined the Maine AllCare Board in 2015 and served as board chair from 2016 to 2021. He is currently a member of the Legislative and Policy Committee and has made multiple presentations to professional groups, with a focus on health care financing and reform.
“I believe that Maine and the United States have many demographic concerns that need to be addressed. One answer to our long-term fiscal and income disparity issues is a single-payer health care payment system. Only when our health care payment system is reformed can we as a state, or a nation, address our long-term health care needs.”
Caryl Heaton, DO
East Blue Hill
BGS University of Michigan; DO Michigan State University; Family Medicine Residency at Ohio State University; Primary Care Faculty Development Fellowship at Michigan State OMERAD; Professorships at Ohio State, Michigan, University of Medicine and Dentistry and Rowan University; Past president of the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine and the New Jersey Academy of Family Physicians
Caryl Heaton has long been an advocate of health care reform and evidence-based primary care. She has taught Family Medicine residents and students for over 30 years, “semi-retiring” to Maine four years ago. She joined the Maine AllCare Board in October 2019 and serves on the Legislative and Policy Committee.
“I truly believe there has to be a better way to give high quality care to people. Doctors and patients need to be able to come together for healing and prevention. We shouldn’t have to worry constantly about what code to bill or what deductible needs to be paid. Having studied this for over 20 years, I am convinced that publicly financed, privately delivered health care is the best answer for all of us."
David Jolly
Penobscot
Master’s in elementary education, Tufts University
DrPH (Doctor of Public Health) in Health Behavior and Health Education, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
David Jolly taught in the Department of Public Health Education at North Carolina Central University for 17 years, where he developed and taught a wide variety of courses in public health and health care policy. He also worked with the state public health department in NC and with other nonprofit organizations, including in pioneering work in the early years of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. He has a long-held interest in health care access and has been an advocate for health care reform for decades. David began volunteering with the Maine AllCare Downeast chapter in 2018. He joined the board in January 2023, and is a member of the Education and Outreach committee.
“I taught a policy course on access to health care at a historically Black university. For their first assignment students wrote about personal experiences with the U.S. health care system—their own or a family member's. Their eye-opening stories were often maddening and/or gut-wrenching. They made clear the system is failing us, those who have been marginalized above all—and too often with tragic results.”
Chloe Maxmin
Nobleboro
Chloe grew up and lives in rural Maine and served in the Maine Legislature from 2018–2022, first as a representative then senator. She is co-founder of JustME for JustUS and Dirt Road Organizing and co-author of Dirt Road Revival. She was elected to the state Senate in 2020 after unseating a two-term Republican incumbent and (former) Senate Minority Leader. In 2018, she served in the Maine House of Representatives after becoming the first Democrat to win a rural conservative district. She is the youngest woman ever to serve in the Maine State Senate. Chloe joined the Maine AllCare Board in October 2021.
"Health care is a human right. In Maine, this conversation is not just about affordability but access. If health care is a human right, it has to be both affordable and accessible. That is why I am working with Maine AllCare."
Julie Keller Pease, MD
Topsham
MD, University of Minnesota Medical School
Internship, St. Barnabas Medical Center, Livingston, New Jersey
Psychiatry Residency at the Medical Center Hospital of Vermont
Dr. Julie Pease hails from Minnesota, and has lived in Maine since 1987. She is currently practicing psychiatry in New Zealand, a country that has provided single-payer universal health care for its residents since 1948.
Dr. Pease is a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, and a past-president of the Maine Association of Psychiatric Physicians. She is a member of Physicians for a National Health Program, and she represents Maine on the board of One Payer States, a national organization that fights to win high-quality, cost-effective health care for all. Dr. Pease was a co-founder of Maine AllCare in 2010 and served as president of the board from 2011-2016. She returned to the Maine AllCare Board in January 2022 and serves on the Education and Outreach Committee.
"It is long past time for us to overhaul our inequitable, overpriced and complicated health care system. I am returning to the Maine AllCare board with the goal of organizing Maine health care practitioners and patients to demand a simple, affordable health care system that will cover everyone in Maine. Please join us in this fight!"
Tom Sterne, MD, Secretary
Bridgton
BA, Harvard College
MSc, London School of Economics
MD, Harvard Medical School; Residency in Internal Medicine, Mass. General Hospital.
Before moving to Maine, Tom worked as a primary care physician, teacher, and administrator in the Boston area for years, and was the Medical Director of two community health centers, with appointments at Mass. General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. With a background in health economics and administration, he has been a longtime member of Physicians for a National Health Program. His interests include medical (and general) education, health care financing and the care of minority and immigrant/refugee populations. He is fluent in Spanish and has lived and worked in the Guatemalan highlands. Tom is married and lives with his wife Tereta and their dog Duke in an 1860s home in Bridgton. Tom joined the Maine AllCare Board in 2018. He is a member of the Legislative and Policy Committee.
“The sad truth is that the vast majority of insurance policies carry with them imposing deductibles, which leave enrollees functionally uninsured, and do not reduce insurers’ administrative overhead. I have joined the Maine AllCare Board to work toward state-based universal coverage, which would provide well-funded, comprehensive, and less-expensive medical care for all Maine residents.”
Ted Sussman, MD, MACP, Board Vice Chair
Houlton
MD, Tufts University Medical School
Internship and Internal Medicine Residency at Cleveland Metropolitan Hospital
Fellowship in Noninvasive Cardiology at the Mass General Hospital.
After training, Ted came to northern Maine with the National Health Service. He has been in Houlton for the past 42 years, except for his cardiology fellowship through the Mass General Hospital. He ran his own practice for over 35 years before transforming the practice to a Rural Health Clinic. He has served as Governor of the Maine chapter of the American College of Physicians, and served as board member of the Maine Health Access Foundation. Ted joined the Maine AllCare Board in October 2021 and chairs the Education and Outreach Committee.
“The present health care system doesn’t work for Maine. Only universal coverage will correct fundamental problems with access and equity.”