As an African-American whose roots reach back to both Jamaica and rural Nebraska, Daniel Edward Dawes grew up with a keen awareness of the economic hardship often endured by ethnic minorities.
Nowhere is that hardship more evident, he soon learned, than in healthcare – where lack of money (or lack of insurance) and disparities in care can deprive desperately ill patients of the treatment and the medicines they need to survive.
Determined to fight for better healthcare for the economically disenfranchised, Dawes started by earning a law degree at UNL. As a student in Lincoln, he learned everything he could about health-related legal issues and the laws that govern them.
Then he set out for Washington, D.C. During the next few years, the youthful attorney found himself working at the cutting edge of healthcare reform in America ... while helping to write sweeping new federal legislation aimed at guaranteeing every American equal access to high-quality healthcare.
A Heartfelt Testimony, an All-Too-Common Story
When the 16-year-old boy from small-town Missouri stepped up to the microphone to talk about his life-and-death struggle with AIDS, the congressional hearing room went utterly silent.
Healthcare attorney Daniel E. Dawes (J.D. ’06), who was moderating the briefing of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) Health Braintrust on that morning more than four years ago, remembered being “deeply and permanently affected” by the heart-stopping drama that followed his introduction of the boy with the life-threatening illness.
The kid’s name was Bryyan Jackson, and the audience in the Gold Room of the Rayburn Office Building on Capitol Hill listened intently as he described his struggle with a disease that has so far killed more than 570,000 Americans.
“In 1996, I lay dying in a hospital bed,” said Bryyan, while the gathering of more than a hundred U.S. House members and staffers leaned forward to catch every word. “In a matter of two months, I went from a playful, energetic and happy five-year-old to a bloated, feverish, vomiting kid who couldn’t walk.
“My mother struggled to carry me to numerous medical appointments – and she begged and prayed for doctors to find a reason why I was appearing near death.”
Gazing around the jam-packed Gold Room – on that March morning in 2007 – the former UNL law student watched several congressional aides reaching for their handkerchiefs.
“I’m not a crier, but I came pretty close that day,” recalled the Washington-based healthcare specialist, who was chairing the meeting as an adviser to the Health Braintrust – a committee that had been formed by the CBC in order to study disparities in access to medical care among ethnic minorities and other “vulnerable populations” in the U.S.
“As an attorney who specializes in advising senators and House members on ways to achieve equity in healthcare,” added Dawes, “I’d already spent several months listening to AIDS patients literally begging for their lives.
“Many of those patients simply couldn’t afford the expensive medications that were keeping them alive. For these desperate souls, the only hope was the national AIDS Drug Assistance Program [ADAP] – which was the topic of discussion that day in the Gold Room.”
Like many of the more than 1 million Americans who now struggle with HIV/AIDS (18,000 of them die from it each year), Bryyan Jackson had lived with the disease for several years before it was diagnosed.
“They checked me for a large number of diseases, even ones that exist in other countries,” the kid from St. Charles, Mo., told his congressional audience that day, while the network TV cameras ground away and the still-photographers lined up their shots. “But since I wasn’t at risk for HIV, and was only five years old, I wasn’t tested for it until three months after I became severely ill.
“It was then that my mom and my doctor asked for me to be tested. The result was devastating. I was diagnosed with full-blown AIDS, and a number of other AIDS-related infections, too. And my family was told I wasn’t going to live long.
“The doctor said six months at the most.”
For many in the hearing room, it was a familiar story – the story of a family with limited means that had been caught in an agonizing dilemma: finding a way to come up with more than $50,000 a year to pay for their son’s AIDS care.
It was truly life or death. Without government assistance, the Jacksons would have been forced to watch their son die. But his life had been saved, thanks to a federal program that had provided him with the drugs required to stave off the deadly virus.
Incredibly enough, however, Jackson’s riveting saga also contained one other twist: the disturbing fact that his own father had actually injected him with the AIDS virus that had nearly taken his life.
Amazed and horrified, Dawes and the rest of the congressional audience sat stricken while Jackson explained: “The way I got HIV-positive was ... my own father was the one who injected me with HIV. He worked in a blood lab and took it from work.
“Not that I was only dying [sic], but I was also a victim of a crime,” said Jackson,
whose father was eventually sentenced to 15 years in prison for committing it. “Yet
by the grace of God and the power of prayer and medications, I stand here before you today as a miracle, wanting to tell my story to bring hope to many and knowledge to all.”
Deeply moved by Jackson’s saga, the audience at the CBC hearing burst into
spontaneous applause, as more than a few staffers dabbed at their eyes.
“That meeting was certainly an unforgettable experience,” said Dawes, “and the bottom line for all of us was crystal-clear. Bryyan Jackson had survived his illness and is doing quite well today because he was able to get the medicines he needed through the national AIDS Drug Assistance Program. And that same program has helped keep thousands of other Americans alive in recent years as well.
“For me, personally, that day in the Gold Room was extremely memorable because
I’d gone to law school at Nebraska and then on to Capitol Hill for one basic reason.
“I was determined – and I’m still determined – to use my skills as a lawyer to
fight for equitable access to quality healthcare and treatments for all American
From Jamaica to Capitol Hill – in one generation
The son of a Jamaican “international student” who went to study at Lincoln’s Union College back in the late 1970s and a GermanAmerican “country girl” who’d been raised on a farm in Deshler (about 70 miles southwest of Lincoln), Daniel Dawes was born in the Nebraska capital in 1980.
As a result of his unique cultural background and experiences as a multi-racial individual, Dawes grew up with a special sensitivity to the social problems so often encountered by racial and ethnic minorities in America.
For Dawes, the stresses and dislocations of bi-racialism, prejudice and unjustified discrimination were underlined early in life – after his parents succumbed to them and divorced.
Barely three years old, he wound up living with his paternal grandmother in Jamaica, along with his younger brother Patrick and his cousin Jody, while his struggling father worked a series of low-paying jobs in America to support them.
By the mid-1980s, however, Edward Dawes had managed to carve out a solid financial future for himself in South Florida and remarried, which meant that Daniel and his younger brother could now rejoin him there, along with their new mom, Mernal Dawes. Two years later, their youngest brother, David, would also join the family. By the time he reached junior high school, Daniel Dawes was fully adjusted to his newly adopted world of Miami and environs.
A bright and independent-minded teenager, Dawes was able to land a couple of “very interesting and very motivating” internships as a high school student. During one of these independent-study projects, he found himself assigned to work in the emergency room of a public hospital in Ft. Lauderdale ... where he got an up-close look at the massive health problems faced by racial and ethnic minorities in South Florida.
“That was where it all began for me,” Dawes said. “Day after day, I saw how Haitian patients were unable to communicate with hospital personnel because they spoke only French Creole. Or I watched African-American and Hispanic AIDS patients struggling to find a way to pay for the medications they needed to stay alive.
“By the time I landed in college as an undergrad [at Nova Southeastern University in Ft. Lauderdale], I was determined to find a way to work on these kinds of social problems by seeking a career in hospital administration.”
During his senior year at Nova, as he thought about the best way to prepare for a life in healthcare, Dawes had a sudden inspiration: why not return to his roots in Nebraska and take advantage of the fact that UNL’s law school was nationally renowned for its expertise in the field of administrative and employment law?
Dawes didn’t hesitate. Within a few days he was on the phone to Lincoln ... and by
the fall of 2003 he was walking into his first class as a UNL law student.
“The dean of the College of Law at that time was Professor [Steven L.] Willborn,” Dawes remembered, “and I must say that our first few exchanges were rather comical. Before I got to Lincoln, I was totally gung-ho ... and so I asked him what courses I should take in order to ‘get into healthcare right away’.
“He kind of chuckled, you know, and he said: ‘Well, that’s not how it [law school] works, actually. You’ll have to take some foundational courses first, Mr. Dawes!’”
Within a few days, the hard-charging Dawes was plowing through the typical first-year law school curriculum – while doing his best to keep up with courses in contracts, torts, Constitutional law and all the rest.
It wasn’t long, however, before the budding Lincoln lawyer was able to sign up for the courses he really wanted to take ... especially including such exciting-sounding offerings as “Law & Medicine” and “Health Care Law,” both of which were taught by a nationally recognized expert on those topics: Professor Craig M. Lawson.
“That second year in Lincoln was extremely exciting for me,” Dawes recalled, “because I got to study with Professor Lawson, who took a policy approach to healthcare issues in his classes. I also got to study with some other very helpful faculty, including:
•[current UNL College of Law Dean] Professor [Susan] Poser
•Professor Anna Shavers, Professor Catherine Wilson
•Professor John Snowden, Dean Steve Willborn
•Professor John Gradwohl
•Dean Glenda Pierce
•Professor Jeff Kirkpatrick
•Professor Robert Denicola
•Professor Colleen Medill and
•Professor Richard Moberly
These skilled teachers exposed me to other areas of the law that could be applied to healthcare – and many of them were also very good on legal issues that involved the formulation of policy.
“All in all, I think I was very fortunate to have studied law at UNL when I did – because it was the perfect preparation for my later work as a policy adviser to Congress on healthcare issues related to equity and to disparities in equal access to care among vulnerable populations.”
“Baptism by Fire” on Capitol Hill
With his UNL law degree now firmly in hand, Dawes wasted no time in setting out for the nation’s capital. There his first assignment – funded by a prestigious Louis Stokes Health Policy Fellowship – would be to provide advice and counsel to the Congressional Black Caucus on matters related to equity in healthcare.
“I remember the first ‘wow moment’ I experienced in Washington, and it happened on my very first day at work,” said Dawes. “This was during the summer of 2006, when I went to a policy meeting that was being run by Congresswoman Donna Christensen [M.D.], who was chairing the CBC Health Braintrust at the time.
“Well, I walked into the hearing room that day, and as soon as I got there, I discovered that just about everybody in attendance was living with AIDS.”
Unprepared for the stark emotions that were on display, Dawes soon found himself engaged in a series of brutally intense discussions with AIDS patients who wept openly and sometimes shouted with rage as they described their struggles to obtain desperately needed medications.
“In many cases, these people were literally begging us to save them from death,” re recalled.
“You talk about a ‘baptism by fire’! That meeting really shook me up, and by the time I finally walked out of that room, I was totally dedicated to the idea of doing everything I could to help those patients get the access to healthcare they so badly needed.”
If Dawes had been enthusiastic about fighting for equity in healthcare as a law student in Lincoln, he was now “on fire” to join the battle on Capitol Hill.
During the next few years, as a healthcare law and policy adviser to the late Senator Ted Kennedy’s senate committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) – and then later as a hard-working “policy wonk” who helped write key “Access and Elimination of Disparities” sections of President Obama’s landmark healthcare reform legislation of 2010 – Dawes established himself as a highly knowledgeable and influential player in the national struggle to make healthcare services accessible to all.
Having already received a Congressional Black Caucus Leadership in Advocacy
Award and a citation saluting his Congressional Staff Leadership, Dawes was last spring honored for his contributions to healthcare by the Nebraska Alumni Association – which presented him with an “Early Achiever Award” during ceremonies in Lincoln.
Uncommon Praise for an Uncommon Commitment
In Washington, meanwhile, Congresswoman Donna M. Christensen (Virgin Islands) continues to sing the praises of the fired-up healthcare attorney loud and clear.
“I knew there was something beyond special about Daniel when he beat out hundreds of applicants and was selected for the Louis Stokes Health Policy Fellowship,” said Christensen. “His brilliance and dedication to the law, to health and other social policies, and to truly being a part of the solution to any problem is only a small part of what makes Daniel completely extraordinary.
“Daniel has consistently proven himself to be an effective champion for America’s most underserved and neglected people and has always been an asset – and in many instances a mentor – to me and my staff. During health reform negotiations, Daniel was determined to harness the power of unity and collaboration, and to ensure that any health reform package introduced included substantive provisions to address a critical issue in health and in healthcare – eliminating the root causes of disparities among vulnerable, underserved and often marginalized populations.
“As a result, he successfully founded and chaired a diverse, national group of almost 300 organizations and coalitions to advance a health equity agenda in health reform. It was because of Daniel’s genuine appreciation and respect for difference, his superior political and policy acumen and his uncanny ability to find and work from common ground that made this group of such incredible diversity a unified voice. I am proud to count Daniel not only as a former Fellow, and not only as a current leader, but also as a friend and someone I feel lucky and honored to know.”
Like Rep. Christensen, Elsie L. Scott, Ph.D., the president and CEO of the influential Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, described Dawes as “a joy to work with.” Said Dr. Scott: “Daniel’s passion for and commitment to equal access to quality healthcare is an inspiration for all of us who care deeply about this issue.”
Now playing at the top of his game, the still-youthful Dawes today serves as an attorney and manager of federal affairs at the Premier Healthcare Alliance in Washington ... an alliance of more than 2,500 U.S. hospitals that seeks to improve patient care through shared knowledge and advocacy.
Ask him to assess the ultimate impact of the groundbreaking 2010 healthcare legislation he helped write, and this cheerful and easygoing young lawyer is quick to admit that “the package certainly wasn’t perfect, and there are a lot of question marks that will have to be addressed in the years ahead.
“Nonetheless,” he added, “I feel very hopeful and very optimistic about healthcare reform in America. For starters, the new law will provide health insurance for more than 32 million Americans who had none (or who were underinsured) and prohibit discrimination against people who have a preexisting condition.
“That’s a giant step forward,” said Dawes with a bright smile of hope for the future of healthcare in America. “But I think it’s also important to point out that we were able to achieve some major gains in healthcare equity under the new law – and that those gains are going to help ensure access to appropriate care for our vulnerable populations.
“For a lawyer who came to Washington to fight for equity in healthcare, it doesn’t get any better than that!”
More details at: http://go.unl.edu/kuq