Education and early career
Kreidler holds a bachelor's degree from Pacific University in Forest Grove,Oregon. [1] After his US Army service as an optometry officer,he earned a doctor of optometry and a master of public health degree in health administration from the UCLA School of Public Health. [2]
He was employed as an optometrist by Group Health Cooperative of the Puget Sound in the Olympia clinic for twenty years. [2] In 1973,he won a seat on the North Thurston School Board. [2] He also served in the Washington State Legislature for 16 years. [2]
Political career
Kreidler served 16 years in the Washington Legislature. [2] [3] He was in the Washington House of Representatives from 1976 to 1984 and then the Washington State Senate from 1984 to 1992. He was elected to the United States Congress as a Representative from the 9th congressional district of Washington in 1992. [3] [4] He was defeated by Republican Randy Tate in 1994. [3]
Following his re-election defeat to Congress in 1994,he was appointed to the Northwest Power Planning Council in 1995 by Washington Governor Mike Lowry and subsequently re-appointed by Governor Gary Locke. [5] He served on the NWPPC until 1998 when he was appointed Regional Director for the United States Department of Health and Human Services's Region 10 office in Seattle,Washington,serving in that post until 2000,when he resigned in order to seek election to the office of Washington State Insurance Commissioner. [6]
Kreidler is Washington's eighth insurance commissioner. He was first elected as insurance commissioner in 2000. [2] [1] He was re-elected to a sixth term in 2020,winning 65% of the vote,the best performance for a statewide Democrat in that election cycle. [7]
He retired as a lieutenant colonel from the Army Reserves with 20 years of service. [8]
Health care
Kreidler has focused on health reform most of his career and worked to implement the Affordable Care Act in Washington state. He was the first insurance commissioner [9] to reject President Obama's proposal to give insurers another year to sell pre-Affordable Care Act plans and testified before Congress on the law's impact on Washington state.
He has opposed efforts by the Trump administration to dismantle the Affordable Care Act, [10] including coverage for pre-existing conditions and limiting the sale of short-term medical plans. [11]
Surprise billing
In 2019,Kreidler proposed legislation banning the practice of surprise medical billing. After several extreme cases [12] were highlighted in the news,support for his proposal increased and the bill was signed into law later that year.
Health care sharing ministries
Kreidler has taken action against fake health sharing ministries [13] and in 2019,he fined one company and its affiliate more than $1 million for selling sham health sharing ministry memberships in Washington state to thousands of consumers.
Climate change
Since 2007,Kreidler has chaired the National Association of Insurance Commissioners' Climate Change and Global Warming Work Group. He led a successful push for insurers to disclose if and how they are preparing for the potential risks associated with climate change. [14]
This page is based on this
Wikipedia article Text is available under the
CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
United States 
United States Army 
