Anthony Wright serves as executive director of Health Access, a statewide health care consumer advocacy organization based in Oakland that is comprised of a coalition of over 200 constituency groups working for quality, affordable health care for all. He currently works out of Sacramento on reforms to prevent severe health care budget cuts, to provide consumer protections for self-pay hospital patients, to address rising health care costs, and to advance comprehensive health care reform. He previously served as the organizing director, overseeing Health Access' grassroots campaigns for health care reform and supervising community organizers and other staff at the organization's Oakland, Sacramento, and Los Angeles offices. Wright came to Health Access with consumer policy expertise in health care, education, media, telecommunications and utilities, community reinvestment, and insurance, and has been widely quoted in local and national media on these issues. He formerly served as program director for New Jersey Citizen Action, the state's largest consumer watchdog coalition, where he supervised a staff of community educators and organizers on a range of issues. As coordinator of New Jersey's health care consumer coalition, he ran successful health advocacy campaigns, winning HMO patient protections, defeating for-profit takeovers of Blue Cross Blue Shield and nonprofit hospitals, getting bills passed for strong oversight for hospital conversions and acquisitions, and greatly expanding health coverage for low- and moderate-income families. He also led campaigns on other issues, including successfully stopping a proposed telephone rate increase. Wright has also worked at the Center for Media Education, The Nation magazine, and in Vice President Gore's office in the White House. Born and raised in the Bronx, Wright graduated from Amherst College with honors in English and sociology.