Coverage Advisory Council

D. Brian Hufford, a graduate of the Yale Law School, has been an industry leader in challenging improper denials and underpayments by health insurance companies and claims administrators on behalf of patients and clinicians. His work includes a national legal effort that is systematically challenging mental health discrimination by insurers, as reflected in the Wit v. United Behavioral Health case, called by Patrick Kennedy, the original sponsor of the 2008 mental health parity act, “the Brown v. Board of Education for the mental health movement.” Brian’s efforts have led to two of the largest recoveries ever obtained in ERISA-based health insurance class actions, and to a remarkable collection of other precedent-setting decisions that have transformed the rights of patients and clinicians. He has received numerous honors and designations relating to his work, including being honored with the National Alliance on Mental Illness (“NAMI”) 2021 Rona and Ken Purdy Award for Distinguished Service for his sustained contributions to improving the lives of people who suffer from mental illness and their families. Until recently, Mr. Hufford ran the health insurance disputes practice at Zuckerman Spaeder LLP. As of July 1, 2025, he opened his own practice, The Hufford Law Firm PLLC, where he plans to focus on public policy and advocacy, including by working in his pro bono practice to train law students to assist individuals in pursuing internal and external appeals of health insurance denials, a service that is wholly lacking in our current system. Married to his wife, Wendy, another attorney, Mr. Hufford is the proud father of eight children.

Daniel Blaney-Koen, JD, is a senior attorney with the American Medical Association Advocacy Resource Center (ARC). Daniel works directly with state and specialty medical societies, as well as national patient and physician advocacy organizations, on state and national legislative, regulatory and policy issues. 

Daniel is the lead attorney for the AMA Substance Use and Pain Care Task Force and also leads the AMA’s legislative and regulatory efforts on physician wellness. Daniel focuses on state legislation, regulation and national policy on mental health and substance use disorder parity and the nation’s drug overdose epidemic, with particular emphasis on overdose prevention and treatment; treatment for patients with pain; and broad harm reduction efforts. Daniel also works directly with state legislatures, medical boards, hospitals and health systems to analyze and update licensing and credentialing applications to support physicians and other health care professionals seeking care for mental health and wellness concerns. Daniel also covers other pharmaceutical issues and related insurance market reforms. 

Daniel has held several roles at the AMA, including serving as a public information officer, policy analyst and speechwriter. Prior to joining the AMA, Daniel’s undergraduate degree is from the University of Arizona. He earned his Master of Fine Arts in Poetry from Colorado State University. He earned his law degree from the Loyola University Chicago School of Law. Daniel, his wife, two sons and daughter live in Chicago, Illinois.

Deb Steinberg (she/her) is a Senior Health Policy Attorney at the Legal Action Center (LAC), a non-profit law and policy organization that fights discrimination, builds health equity, and restores opportunity for people with substance use disorders (SUD), arrest and conviction records, and HIV/AIDS. Deb develops and advocates for federal and state policies to improve access to SUD and mental health coverage and care. She leads LAC’s work to improve enforcement of the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act, as well as LAC’s Medicare Addiction Parity Project which seeks to close coverage gaps for older adults and people with disabilities. Deb also serves as a Consumer Representative to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC). 

Prior to LAC, Deb worked at Health Law Advocates and the Massachusetts Health Policy Commission. She earned her B.A. from Vassar College and J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center, and she is currently a Bloomberg Fellow in Addiction and Overdose at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Eric M. Plakun, MD is former Medical Director/CEO of the Austen Riggs Center, and former Harvard Medical School clinical faculty member. He is the editor of 2 books, including Treatment Resistance and Patient Authority: The Austen Riggs Reader (Norton, 2011), author of over a hundred published papers and book chapters, and has presented widely in the US and overseas. Dr. Plakun is a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, and served as an elected member of its Board of Trustees. He is past chair of the APA Committee on Psychotherapy by Psychiatrists, APA Bylaws Committee, and founder and past leader of its Psychotherapy Caucus. He is a past member of the APA Finance and Budget Committee, the APA Assembly Executive Committee, and past chair of the Assembly Committee of Representatives of Subspecialties and Sections. Dr. Plakun served as plaintiffs’ expert on adult mental disorders in the landmark case of Wit versus United Behavioral Health/Optum that challenged restricted access to treatment for mental and substance use disorders. He has been honored for his contributions to the field by the Massachusetts Psychiatric Society, the American Psychiatric Association, and the American Psychoanalytic Association. Dr. Plakun is a leader in organized psychiatry and psychoanalysis, an advocate for the value of psychotherapy and other psychosocial treatments, and an advocate for access to care. 

Before entering psychiatry, Dr. Plakun served as a rural general practitioner in Vermont—where he made house calls on skis.

Ezra Golberstein is a Professor of health policy and management at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health. He is a health economist and health policy researcher. He received is PhD from the University of Michigan and was an NIMH postdoctoral fellow in mental health economics prior to joining the University of Minnesota. Much of his research focuses on mental health services and policy. This includes research on financing of care including health insurance expansions and mental health parity, and effects of mental health care delivery models. Current projects include studies of eliminating cost-sharing for behavioral health services, paid sick leave mandates and mental health services, and use of behavioral health integration payment codes.

Katie Keith is the founding director of the Center for Health Policy and the Law at the O’Neill Institute, where she oversees the center’s work on demystifying the important role that litigation and the courts play in health policy. As director, Keith advises policymakers and conducts research on a range of health policy legal issues with an emphasis on access to coverage, affordability, transparency, and equity. Keith also serves as the O’Neill Institute’s first-ever director of national affairs and programs, where she spearheads new partnerships, programming, and thought leadership centered on reproductive rights, gender equity, and the courts’ impact on health care access more broadly. 

Keith is also a lead contributor of rapid response analysis for the “Health Policy at a Crossroads” series for Health Affairs Forefront and maintains a faculty appointment at Georgetown University’s Center on Health Insurance Reforms. Her analysis is regularly featured in national and state media outlets across the country. 

From 2022 to 2025, Keith was on public service leave from the O’Neill Institute to serve as deputy assistant to the president and deputy director of the first-ever White House Gender Policy Council. President Biden established the Gender Policy Council in 2021 to advance the rights of women and girls across domestic and foreign policy. As deputy director, Keith oversaw the council’s domestic policy portfolio and spearheaded the administration’s efforts to defend reproductive rights, advance research on women’s health, promote women’s economic security, and prevent and end gender-based violence. 

Keith is a co-founder of Out2Enroll, a national initiative to connect LGBTQ people with coverage options, and previously served as an appointed consumer representative to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. Prior to joining the O’Neill Institute, Keith advised nonprofit and foundation clients on ways to secure state and federal health care priorities and served as both an AmeriCorps program director in Las Vegas and as a Peace Corps volunteer in Ghana. She also taught courses at Georgetown Law on the Affordable Care and LGBTQ health policy. 

Keith received her J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center, her Master’s in Public Health from Johns Hopkins University, and her B.A. from the University of Texas at Austin.

Kevin Costello is the Director of Litigation at the Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation of Harvard Law School. In addition to teaching law students, Mr. Costello is involved with a range of different impact litigation projects aimed at advancing health equity for people living with lower incomes and chronic health conditions. CHLPI’s litigation seeks to increase access and fight against discrimination in health care. Prior to coming to CHLPI, Kevin was in private practice for eight years, including as a principal at Klein Kavanagh Costello, LLP. Kevin’s practice involved complex litigation in the fields of housing, health care, civil rights, antitrust and consumer law. He has been appointed by federal courts across the country to represent classes in Multi-District Litigation, as well as in nationwide class action litigation. Kevin has brought lawsuits against major banks for broken promises arising from the federal government’s Home Affordable Modification Program, challenged the broadcast blackout restrictions of Major League Baseball and the National Hockey League and fought against the practices of law firms and banks in Massachusetts that improperly foreclosed on financially vulnerable homeowners. Kevin was also part of the team that litigated a series of cases uncovering systemic racial discrimination in the mortgage lending field. Prior to entering private practice, Kevin was a staff attorney at Community Legal Services in Philadelphia, helping seniors navigate the health care system. In this role, he fought to ensure that his low-income clients were treated fairly in the roll-out of the Medicare prescription drug benefit and litigated to enforce their rights in various public benefit and health care systems. 

Mr. Costello is an honors graduate of both Boston College and the University of Pennsylvania Law School. He served as law clerk to both the Hon. Joseph H. Rodriguez of the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey and the Hon. Francis X. Spina of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.

President Joseph Biden nominated Lisa M. Gomez to serve as Assistant Secretary for Employee Benefits Security for the U.S. Department of Labor in July 2021 and was confirmed by the U.S. Senate in September 2022. She was sworn in on October 11, 2022, and served in that position until January 20, 2025. She is now the founding member of LMG Collaborative Consulting Solutions, a consulting firm providing services in all areas related to employee benefit plans. Previously, Gomez was a partner with the law firm Cohen, Weiss and Simon LLP and the chair of the firm’s management committee. 

Lisa has deep technical and practical experience in the multifaceted field of employee benefits law and has spent almost three decades representing various Taft-Hartley and multiemployer pension and welfare plans, single employer plans, jointly administered training program trust funds, a federal employees health benefit (FEHB) plan, supplemental health plans and VEBAs covering employees in a wide array of industries. As the head of the Department of Labor’s Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA), Lisa was responsible for leading an agency with approximately 850 full-time employees nationwide and a budget of approximately $191 million, and was charged with the safeguarding of the job-based retirement, health and other welfare benefits for more than 153 million American workers and retirees and their families. Through Lisa’s leadership, EBSA oversaw approximately 2.6 million job-based health plans, 801,000 retirement plans, and 548,000 other welfare plans, with combined assets of nearly $12 trillion, in addition to the oversight of the federal Thrift Savings Program, the largest defined contribution program with approximately seven million participants. In this position, Lisa worked closely with the White House’s Domestic PolicyCouncil, National Economic Council. Gender Policy Council, and top advisors to the President and Vice-President, as well as leadership with other federal and state agencies, members of Congress and external stakeholders. Lisa was recognized for her work with the agency during her tenure, including in areas such as retirement security, implementation of SECURE and SECURE 2.0, the No Surprises Act, the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act, the Employee Ownership Initiative and other projects and priorities. Lisa was a frequent speaker during her time at EBSA, appeared in several webcasts, podcasts, and other media interviews, and was often sought by the press as a leader in retirement and health. 

Prior to her time in public service, Lisa served as a co-chair of the board of senior editors of the Bloomberg BNA treatise Employee Benefits Law. She also served in various leadership positions with the American Bar Association (ABA) Section of Labor and Employment Law, including as the union co-chair of its employee benefits committee. She is a graduate of the ABA Section of Labor and Employment Law’s leadership development program and served as the union co-chair for that program. She was a member of the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans and the AFL-CIO Union Lawyers Alliance. Lisa was inducted as a

Fellow of The American College of Employee Benefits Counsel, Inc. in recognition of her decades of practice in employee benefits law and her contributions to the field. Lisa was also a member of the advisory board of The Peggy Browning Fund. She previously served as an arbitrator for the American Arbitration Association as well as a volunteer mediator for the New Jersey state courts. She was a guest lecturer for the Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations and Hofstra University School of Law on employee benefits. Lisa was named as a Super Lawyer for Employee Benefits on the Super Lawyers New York Metro Annual Lists for 2021 and 2022. She earned her law degree from the Fordham University School of Law and her undergraduate degree from Hofstra University.

Mark D. DeBofsky is the founding member of the law firm of DeBofsky Law Ltd. in Chicago, IL. He concentrates his practice in the representation of claimants and plaintiffs in employee benefit claim disputes involving disability insurance, life, health, retirement, long-term care, and other employee benefit-related matters. In addition to his full-time practice, Mark DeBofsky is currently serving as a member of the U.S. Department of Labor’s ERISA Advisory Council, and previously served as an adjunct professor at the University of Illinois-Chicago School of Law (formerly known as John Marshall Law School) from 2000 – 2021. DeBofsky has also been a regular columnist for the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin since 2003, and a columnist with Law360 since 2020, as well as on the editorial board of Bender’s Labor & Employment Bulletin since 2022, along with having been a senior editor of the Bloomberg Employee Benefits Law treatise for many years.  

DeBofsky has authored numerous journal articles and regularly speaks at legal symposia sponsored by national, state-wide, and local legal organizations such as the American Bar Association, American Association for Justice, American Conference Institute, Illinois and Chicago Bar Associations, and the Illinois Institute for Continuing Legal Education. He has also been active with a variety of non-profit legal services organizations. 

DeBofsky has been recognized by his peers by being named one of the Top 100 Lawyers in the State of Illinois by SuperLawyers; and he has been recognized by the Leading Lawyers Network and his firm has been listed by U.S. News and World Report – Best Lawyers/Best Law Firms. 

Mark DeBofsky is a 1977 graduate of the University of Michigan and a 1980 graduate of the University of Illinois College of Law. He has been admitted to practice law in the States of Illinois and Hawaii, and by the United States Supreme Court, and the United States Courts of Appeals for the Third, Seventh, Eighth, Ninth, Eleventh, and Federal Circuits, as well as numerous federal district courts.

Dr. Hickey began his career as a general internist on the Navajo Reservation in the Indian Health Service for seven years. He then moved on to the VA in Albuquerque and then to the University of New Mexico. During that time, he set up the first rural health clinics in the VA nationally for which he received the National Rural Health Award, and then served as Medical Director of the University Physician Associates, the faculty practice. He moved over to Lovelace Health Systems in 1994, first as Chief Medical Officer and then President and CEO. In 2005 he was recruited to Excellus Blue Cross of New York where he managed a several billion-dollar budget overseeing all of Medicaid, Medicare, and Medical Affairs. In 2012 he returned to New Mexico to start the Obama Care Health Cooperative, New Mexico Connections and True Health. Nationally, he was Chair of the Board of the National Association of State Health Cooperatives from 2013-2020. In 2020 he retired then ran for the State Senate and won, being re-elected in 2024.

In the Senate he has focused on healthcare, especially mental health and substance use. Of note is his sponsoring and enacting the most advanced law on Mental Health Parity nationally, and legislating New Mexico to be the only state with no cost sharing for behavioral health services and medications. Further, he appropriated the funding to start the new UNM School of Public Health. He to designed new the executive department named the Health Care Authority which oversees Medicaid, all state commercial health insurance and behavioral health. Most recently he increased Medicaid payments for behavioral health and primary care to 150% of Medicare.

He has been the President of the American College of Physician Executives, has sat on multiple national committees, and has given over 200 talks nationally on all aspects of health care. Martin is a graduate of Johns Hopkins University and Rush Medical College in Chicago. He completed a residency in Primary Care Internal Medicine at the University of Rochester, and earned his master’s degree in Administrative Medicine from the University of Wisconsin.

Meiram Bendat is an attorney, as well as a psychotherapist, and founder of Psych-Appeal. With a background in law, clinical psychology, marriage and family therapy, and psychoanalysis, he serves as a consultant to national mental health advocacy organizations and frequently presents on access to treatment and mental health parity. He authored California’s pioneering mental health parity law, SB855, which has served as model legislation throughout the country. Meiram is Adjunct Professor in Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University School of Medicine and a distinguished Ittleson Consultant to the Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry. He has testified in Congress and state legislatures and lectured at universities around the country, including at Yale Medical School and Butler Hospital (Brown University). He has been interviewed in the press and has published widely.

Michael McRaith is a Managing Partner and Vice Chair of Brookfield Wealth Solutions, participating in all aspects of Brookfield’s global insurance operations. Prior to joining Brookfield Wealth Solutions in 2021, Mr. McRaith helped build the insurance solutions practice at a global asset manager. He previously served as the first Director of the Federal Insurance Office in the U.S. Department of the Treasury, where he held national and global leadership roles. Before joining Treasury, he served as the Director of the Illinois Department of Insurance and as an officer of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. Prior to his public service, Mr. McRaith was a partner in the Chicago office of a global law firm, and he remains a member of the Trial Bar for the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. Mr. McRaith holds a Juris Doctor degree from Loyola University of Chicago’s School of Law and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Indiana University. He received the Distinguished LGBTQ Alumnus Award from Indiana University, the Exceptional Service Award from the U.S. Department of the Treasury, and is a Distinguished Fellow of the International Association of Insurance Supervisors. Mr. McRaith is a member of The Bretton Woods Committee.

Dr. Miriam E. Delphin-Rittmon is currently the Commissioner of the Connecticut State Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services. She was appointed in March 2015 and previously held the positions of Deputy Commissioner, Senior Policy Advisor and Director of the department’s Office of Multicultural Healthcare Equity. In her role as Commissioner, Dr. Delphin-Rittmon is committed to promoting recovery oriented, integrated, and culturally responsive services and systems that foster dignity, respect, and meaningful community inclusion. 

Through her nineteen year career in the behavioral health field Dr. Delphin-Rittmon has extensive experience in the design, evaluation, and administration of mental health, substance use and prevention services and systems and has received several awards for advancing policy in these areas. Most recently, she received the 2019 State Service Award from the National Association of State Drug and Alcohol Directors and the 2016 Mental Health Award for Excellence from the United Nations Committee on Mental Health. 

Passionate about impacting policy at the state, local, and national levels Dr. Delphin-Rittmon currently serves on the SAMHSA Advisory Committee for Women’s Services, is a member of the Board of Directors for the National Research Institute and the University of Connecticut’s Recovery Advisory Committee, and serves on the Policy Committee of the National Association 

of State Alcohol and Drug Abuse Directors. 

In May 2014, Dr. Delphin-Rittmon completed a two-year White House appointment working as a Senior Advisor to the Administrator of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. While at SAMHSA, she worked on a range of policy initiatives addressing behavioral health equity, workforce development, and healthcare reform. 

Dr. Delphin-Rittmon has served as an Associate Professor with the Yale School of Medicine’s Department of Psychiatry, where she was also the Director of Cultural Competence and Health Disparities Research and Consultation with the Program for Recovery and Community Health. She received her B.A. in Social Science from Hofstra University in 1989, her M.S. and Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from Purdue University 1992 and 2001, respectively, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in clinical community psychology at Yale University in 2002.

Nathaniel Z Counts, JD, serves as the Chief Policy Officer for The Kennedy Forum, a national mental health non-profit, as well as Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. In his position with The Kennedy Forum, he advances a public policy agenda aimed at ensuring equitable access to effective and responsive services and supports, within a population health framework that focuses on prevention and social determinants of health. In previous roles, Nathaniel served as Senior Policy Advisor for Mental Health to the Commissioner of Health for the City of New York, where he advised on innovative financing, policy, and research strategies for achieving the city’s mental health goals. Previously, he was the Senior Vice President of Behavioral Health Innovation for Mental Health America (MHA). Nathaniel is a sought-after advisor on mental health policy issues, having served on a range of national committees and in roles such as Senior Fellow for Behavioral Health Policy at the Commonwealth Fund, expert member on the Forum for Promoting Children’s Wellbeing at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, and Visiting Scholar with the Outreach & Education Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. His thought leadership and research have been published in journals such as JAMA Pediatrics, Lancet Psychiatry, and Nature Mental Health, and he has presented at annual conferences for societies such as AcademyHealth and the American Society of Health Economists. He received his JD cum laude from Harvard Law School, where he was a Student Fellow at the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, and his BA in biology from Johns Hopkins.

Shawn Coughlin is the president and CEO at NABH. In this role, he serves as the association’s principal  lobbyist, oversees the association’s advocacy work on Capitol Hill, and helps to set and implement  strategic policy goals that support high-quality evidence based behavioral healthcare for Americans who  live with mental and substance use disorders.  

Mr. Coughlin brings more than 30 years of advocacy experience to his role. Prior to joining NABH, Mr.  Coughlin served as advocacy consultant to the association on behavioral health policy during his almost  16 years with Capitol Health Group as principal and chief operating officer. He is a leading healthcare  advocate and policy expert who works with diverse external stakeholder organizations, including patient  and provider groups, regulators, public and private payors, and trade associations. He has extensive  experience in Medicare, Medicaid and private insurance policy, as well as a broad experience with many  sectors of the healthcare industry. 

Mr. Coughlin began his health policy career working on Capitol Hill, handling various healthcare policy  needs for members of the House Ways and Means Committee. He was a professional staff member on  the prestigious House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Health, served as senior health policy advisor for a senior member of the Committee, and a legislative assistant. 

Mr. Coughlin earned a bachelor’s degree from Lafayette College in Easton, Pa. and a master’s degree in  public management from the University of Maryland.

Sheirin Ghoddoucy is senior legal counsel and director of legal advocacy at the California Medical Association, serving as the lead attorney on the association’s legislative and regulatory advocacy efforts. Her primary areas of expertise include managed care, provider reimbursement, and health care policy and access. Sheirin brings over a decade of experience regulating health insurance in California, having worked closely on the state’s implementation of the Affordable Care Act and the federal Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act, as well as a range of legislative and regulatory efforts related to health care coverage, network adequacy, mental health parity, health care access and equity, and other aspects of health insurance regulation and oversight.

Wendell Potter is a leading advocate for health care system reform in both the political arena and the marketplace. 

Working dual roles, Wendell is president of the Center for Health and Democracy, he regularly engages across the political spectrum to discuss health insurance issues with members of Congress, state legislatures and their staffs. He is also the editor-in-chief of HEALTH CARE un-covered, which investigates and reports on health care corporations and insurance conglomerates in particular. He frequently posts on X. 

A New York Times bestselling author, Wendell returned to his first career of journalism after serving for two decades as head of communications for two of the country’s largest insurers, Cigna and Humana. He became an industry whistleblower when Congress was debating what became the Affordable Care Act. Wendell testified before several Senate and House committees, pulling the curtains back on prevalent industry business practices that resulted in higher health care costs and a growing number of uninsured and underinsured Americans. 

His first book, Deadly Spin, won numerous awards and is still used in journalism and health policy classes at universities across the country. He has contributed to The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Today and many other publications, and has appeared frequently on CNN, NPR, MSNBC, Fox Business and other media outlets.