Fred G. Brown

Biography

Fred G. Brown joined Berger Montague in 2023 as Of Counsel in the firm’s Employee Benefits & ERISA practice group, after retiring from 14 years as Executive Director of the Pacific Health Coalition (PHC). Mr. Brown’s practice continues to focus on bringing down the cost of health care, an area of passion where he has spent most of his professional career.

As Executive Director of PHC, Mr. Brown was an active board member of the National Labor Alliance of Healthcare Coalitions (NLA), and he now serves in his second term as the NLA President. The NLA was incorporated originally in New York in 1996 and grew to become a national alliance of Taft-Hartley & public sector labor / management coalitions, representing over 6 million covered lives.

The mission of both the NLA and the PHC is to ensure that member workers and their families have access to value- and quality-based health care benefits and services. At the time Mr. Brown became its Executive Director in 2009, the PHC included 15 Alaska health plans with approximately 25,000 employees, plus their dependents. After Mr. Brown became Executive Director, the PHC expanded into Washington State, then throughout the Pacific Northwest and beyond. The PHC now includes approximately 30 Alaska funds and 20 funds headquartered in the Western United States, representing a total of over 250,000 covered lives.

Mr. Brown is a periodic speaker at symposiums including International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plan (IFEBP) conferences and has been published in the IFEBP Benefits Magazine. He speaks on topics relating to healthcare purchasing costs, including at conferences like the NLA Member Coalitions and Trust Funds (2009), Northwest Administrators Association Annual Conference (2021 and 2022), Oregon and Washington Building Trades Conventions (2021), and IFEBP Conference (2010, 2012, and 2019). He was also the host and moderator of two NLA-sponsored National Webinars on the Blue Cross Blue Shield Antitrust Litigation Settlement, Featuring the Plaintiffs’ Co-counsel (2021).

Prior to becoming the PHC Executive Director, Mr. Brown was an Alaska Department of Labor Hearing Officer, arbitrating workers’ compensation benefit disputes. During this period, Mr. Brown was also appointed a Trustee of the Alaska State Employee Association / AFSCME Local 52 Health Benefit Trust and he served over 13 years as chair of the Trust. Meanwhile, he was also twice elected President of the affiliated union, ASEA/AFSCME Local 52, and additionally served as an Alaska AFL-CIO State Federation Vice President, and as a delegate to multiple regional and national union and political conventions.

Prior to his work with the Alaska Department of Labor, while still living on his Oregon family farm, Mr. Brown engaged in class action litigation in federal courts representing farm groups throughout the United States. This work helped bring about changes to US bankruptcy law, and the administration of farm foreclosures by the Farmers Home Administration, now known as USDA Farm Service Agency.

Before Law School, Mr. Brown was a staff member of Oregon US Senator Mark Hatfield.