“The hospitals in Portland are like the politics in Ireland,” Steve Lynch once told me. “You’ve got the Catholics (Providence), the Protestants (Legacy) and the communists (Kaiser).”
He then proceeded to explain how the three healthcare systems differed from each other, and in which ways they were virtually identical. It was 12 years ago, when Lynch was public affairs director for PacifiCare of Oregon, and I was a communications manager. This memory reminded me of his alluring ability to communicate, his gift for cutting through the bureaucratic terminology that infests the health insurance world, and the twinkle of humor that could appear any time when you were in his presence.
“Steve was a true leader,” says Cindy Fineran, who worked with Lynch at both PacifiCare and HealthNet of Oregon. “He was always looking at things from a different perspective, and often with humor.”
Sadly, Stephen Daniel Lynch passed away on Dec. 28, 2013 at Salem Hospital following complications from open heart surgery. His life and career took many turns, but for around two decades, he was a charismatic presence in Oregon health insurance and health policy circles.
Lynch grew up in Wrentham, Massachusetts and graduated from the University of Georgia in 1974. He completed a master’s degree at University College in Dublin in 1975.
His early adult years brought forth a wealth of adventures, if not a wealth of income. He drove a taxi cab in New York City for a while, and sold hot dogs on the professional golf tour. Eventually, he and his wife, Elise, settled in Ireland, where they ran a specialty foods store, and later, lived on an organic farm where their first two children were born.
Lisa Dietz, a friend and colleague at both PacifiCare and HealthNet, says she never tired of his storytelling. Dietz recalled an anecdote where Lynch found himself lost in the Irish countryside, struggling to figure out how to get to Dublin. He eventually finds an old man, who did not deliver the response he was looking for.
“If I be headin’ to Dublin, I wouldn’t be startin’ here.”
“Of course, the tales from Ireland would be told with his perfect Irish brogue,” Dietz says. But for her, the story about getting lost in the old country had another, more important meaning.
“Steve’s life was full of adventures, and full of twists and turns,” she says. “In his personal life, and his business life, he’d so often take the unconventional path, which usually led to great results for him and the organizations he worked for.”
Lynch’s health insurance career began with a job selling Colonial Penn policies from a kiosk at a Fred Meyer store. This experience led to sales positions for SelectCare Health Plans and BlueCross BlueShield of Oregon. In 1994, he was hired by PacifiCare to manage the California-based publicly-traded company’s Medford office, leading an expansion of the capitation-based health plan into southern Oregon.
One of Lynch’s great strengths was how he could communicate with virtually anyone about medical insurance, healthcare policy, and corporate management issues. This ability led to increasing responsibility at PacifiCare of Oregon. Along with sales positions, he managed provider relations, and regulatory and public affairs, where he would be counted on to productively discuss medical issues with the media, health plan members, or with legislators.
When Lynch hosted “town hall” meetings for members of PacifiCare’s Secure Horizons Medicare health plan, he would begin by standing in front of as many as 500 customers, some upset with an unexpected rate increase or a reduced benefit. But by the end of the session, he had a vast roomful of new friends. He might kick off his remarks with some background on Medicare policy (“Some of you may remember Senator Dirksen, who said ‘a billon here and a billion there, and pretty soon you’re talking real money.’ Well that’s Medicare for you…”) and end by taking questions from the audience, where he calmly responded to each individual inquiry with clarity and empathy.
His ability to strategize for an organization and never lose the connection with the plan members who are ultimately served by an insurance company — for-profit or nonprofit — is what led PacifiCare to promote him to general manager, and soon after, what led HealthNet to hire him as president of its Oregon office. Not long after joining HealthNet of Oregon, Lynch was promoted once again, this time, to president of the parent company’s Health Plan division.
Chris Ellertson, HealtNet of Oregon’s current president, who had previously worked under Lynch at PacifiCare and at HealthNet, says “Steve was provocative in the most positive sense of the word. He would find the good in people and help them carry it forward. That’s a hallmark of a great leader — and a great person."
Committed to maintaining his family home south of Salem in Turner, Oregon, (a house he constructed himself) he began commuting between Turner and Los Angeles for the next few years. Then, in early 2009, Lynch retired from HealthNet, and returned to Oregon full-time.
“I thought that I’d ride off into the sunset,” he told The Lund Report. “Instead I rode into the playground.”
Lynch had re-invented himself once again, this time as principal of St. Joseph’s Catholic School in Salem. “I get to hang out with eight-year-olds, and I love it,” he said. “When I retired, I thought I’d be volunteering. Then this came my way.”
Lynch finally reached his volunteering position after stepping down from St. Joseph’s in 2012. Melissa Doxtator, Lynch’s successor as principal, said he volunteered two days a week to work with small groups of kids in math. “Seeing him would light up their faces,” she observed. “They gravitated to him as he had a special relationship with each one of them. Steve believed in our school. He believed in every student and family, and he worked tirelessly for everyone.”
Lynch served as board chair of the Oregon Medical Insurance Pool and also held board positions on the Oregon Health Care Quality Corporation, the Governor's Workgroup on Patient Protection, and for PacificSource Health Plans.
Ken Provencher, PacificSource president and CEO, one of so many who were devastated by Lynch’s passing, wrote “Steve was a great friend and trusted adviser. He cared deeply about the company, our employees and our members, and his compassion, wit and strategic thinking will continue to have a huge influence on me.”
“I once heard ‘mentor’ defined as someone who has a greater belief in you than you have in yourself,” said Cindy Fineran, who now works for the Walker Companies in Lake Oswego. “Steve was a great mentor for many who worked for him. He believed in us, and through his optimism and confidence, he got us to believe in ourselves.”
Steve Lynch is survived by Elise, his wife of 39 years; his sons Jonah and Samuel; his daughters Ariel Lynch and Isolde Stringham; and his granddaughters, Nicola and Brynn Stringham.
Steve, wherever you may now be, “take good care.”
Chris Palmedo is a communications consultant and serves on the board of the Lund Report. He will soon co-host, with Courtney Sherwood, the Lund Report Health News segments on XRAY.FM radio.
