Former Chief Medical Officer Doug Dammrose was an original board member for the Blue Cross of Idaho Foundation for Health
It’s fitting that Doug Dammrose was on the first Blue Cross of Idaho Foundation for Health board of directors, given his desire to help those in need. The Idaho native was the Chief Medical Officer at Blue Cross of Idaho in 2001 when it created the foundation, and he served on the board until his retirement in 2010, completing 14 years of service with the company.
Dammrose had a philanthropic mindset early in his career, starting when he was a dentist in the Indian Health Service in New Mexico.
“I probably have always been oriented toward trying to serve underprivileged people,” he said. “I did a dental internship at the Gallup Indian Hospital in Gallup, New Mexico, and that was the start of recognizing how much need there was out there, oftentimes unfulfilled. At that time, I kind of said ‘you know, I think I can serve people better, I’m going to go back to medical school.”
Dammrose became board certified in internal medicine and had a private practice before he was recruited to Blue Cross of Idaho by another medical director. He remembers the Foundation forming three years after the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement that required tobacco companies to settle dozens of state lawsuits brought to recover billions of dollars in healthcare costs associated with treating smoking-related illnesses.
The Foundation’s first grant was to support a smoking cessation program in 2003 recommended by Dammrose. Looking back through grant reports, many of the grants given in the initial years focused on prevention and benefitted organizations such as the American Cancer Society, American Lung Association, Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, Humphrey’s Diabetes Center, the Idaho Meth Project, and more.
“My role at the Foundation was to try and understand the best spend based on burden of disease and how our early programs could have the biggest impact,” he said.
Dammrose also fondly recalls the Blue Cruise bicycle events that started in 2004 and continued for another 10 years. The annual ride attracted hundreds of riders, raising funds that were distributed to many nonprofit organizations.
“That didn’t surprise me because Boise is a very active outdoor community,” he said. “It’s a place where any kind of physically active event is well supported by the community. I think people really enjoy those types of festivities. It was really a family event too, a lot of families could do it.”
Dammrose never rode in the Blue Cruise, but he was involved.
“Several of us who were interested in blues music figured that the Blues Cruise certainly lended itself to playing some blues as part of the festivities,” he said. “I played blues harmonica. We had a guitarist, and we’d find a bass player and drummer from the business, or we’d hire someone. We’d have a stage set up and then play blues when the contestants arrived on their bicycles.”
After retiring, Dammrose launched a medical utilization management committee that helped Idaho’s 44 counties manage their state’s indigent medical funds. He also served as executive director of the Mountain Health Co-op, which was a health plan that launched with the Affordable Care Act. Dammrose, who recently celebrated his 80th birthday, currently serves on the board of directors for the St. Luke’s Health Plan.