Bechara Choucair
Executive Vice President and Chief Health Officer, Kaiser Permanente
Dr. Bechara Choucair, a board-certified family physician, serves as chief health officer for Kaiser Permanente, one of America’s leading integrated health systems with more than 12.5 million members. He oversees for the organization’s Medicaid line of business covering 1.5 million members, and advances initiatives to increase access to care and improve health outcomes for those enrolled in both Medicaid and Medicare. Dr. Choucair also leads the organization’s community health and social health portfolios. This includes creating the nation’s largest social health network to meet the housing, food and transportation needs of Kaiser Permanente’s members and managing $3.4 billion to support medical financial assistance and charitable health coverage programs, as well as grants to community health programs throughout the organization’s footprint. In addition, he is accountable for Kaiser Permanente’s environmental stewardship work, which resulted in the organization becoming carbon neutral in 2020, and he oversees the organization’s goal to reach net-zero emissions by 2050. From January through November 2021, Dr. Choucair served as the White House national COVID-19 vaccinations coordinator. During his tenure, nearly 500 million doses of the vaccine were administered nationwide. He returned to Kaiser Permanente in December 2021. Dr. Choucair served as Chicago’s Public Health Commissioner from 2009 to 2014.
