Senator Jane Kitchel, Member of the Vermont Senate and Co-Chair, Health Care Reform Committee
Jane Kitchel has 35 years of experience in the public human services field in Vermont. In 1992, she was appointed commissioner for the Department of Social Welfare by Governor Howard Dean. She led an initiative to expand child health programs to assure universal coverage, designed and implemented Vermont's first in the nation statewide welfare reform waiver project, and managed the implementation of Vermont's earliest effort at health care reform that ended in the creation of the Vermont Health Access Program. In 1999, she was appointed secretary of the Vermont Agency of Human Services by Governor Dean, where she was responsible for the administration of public assistance, Medicaid, mental health, corrections, child welfare, child care, public health, and child support. In 2004, she was elected to the Vermont senate. She is vice chair of Senate Appropriations, co-chair for the Health Care Reform Commission, and a member of the Health Access Oversight Committee.