He is the president of Center for Health Care Strategies, Inc. (CHCS) which he founded in 1995 with a major grant from The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. He is responsible for the organization’s growth into a nationally recognized center of expertise on best practices in managed care for beneficiaries of this country’s safety-net health coverage programs. CHCS now receives support from multiple philanthropies including the Annie E. Casey, David and Lucile Packard, and California HealthCare Foundations, as well as The Commonwealth Fund.

Prior to CHCS, Somers was an associate vice president and program officer at The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Before joining the Foundation, he was a staff member at the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging, a legislative assistant to U.S. Senator John Heinz of Pennsylvania, and the executive secretary of the U.S. Commissioner of Education’s Task Force on Urban High School Reform. Ph.D. Stanford University