Sonier Health Data and Policy Strategies, LLC

Sonier Health Data and Policy Strategies, LLC provides strategic advisory services and analysis on state health policy issues, with a particular focus on health care affordability, spending growth, access, quality, and market trends. Services include: 

• Research and data analysis
• Strategic planning
• Environmental scans and stakeholder engagement
• Policy development
• Facilitation and stakeholder convening

We rely on insights from decades of experience in state-level health policy to ask the right questions, identify the best data sources and metrics to address the problem at hand, generate insights into underlying problems and potential solutions, synthesize information across multiple and potentially conflicting perspectives, and produce credible, objective analysis and recommendations.

Sonier Health Data and Policy Strategies, LLC is a woman-owned small business certified by the State of Minnesota as a Targeted Group (TG) business.

Julie Sonier, the founder and president of the firm, is a state health policy consultant and leader with 30 years of experience navigating the intersection of data, economics, and public policy. Ms. Sonier is an experienced state health policy leader recognized for her expertise in health care cost and affordability, access, quality, and related topics. She is a subject matter expert known for her ability to facilitate multi-stakeholder discussion and collaboration on complex policy issues, her ability to synthesize information from multiple sources and points of view, and her ability to use data to bring incisive, credible analysis to policy discussions and debates. 

Throughout her career, she has occupied almost every seat at the table—as a consultant and strategic advisor, a researcher, a state official, a large-employer purchaser, and a nonprofit executive. This 360-degree perspective allows her to bridge the gap between policy development and the real-world impacts of health care reform.Ms. Sonier’s work is defined by a commitment to credible, objective, and evidence-based analysis that solves complex problems in the following areas:• Health Care Affordability: Identifying and analyzing cost drivers to help states and organizations manage spending growth.• Health Insurance Coverage and Access: Understanding the policy and market changes that affect access to insurance coverage and health care services, and crafting solutions to address barriers.• Quality & Equity: Developing and implementing measurement frameworks that track health care outcomes and address disparities through a data-driven lens.• Multi-Stakeholder Collaboration: Facilitating consensus among diverse groups—including payers, providers, state agencies, employers, and consumer groups—to drive systemic change.Ms. Sonier earned a masters degree in public affairs with a concentration in economics from Princeton University, and a bachelor of arts in economics from Amherst College. She has served as Minnesota’s state health economist, deputy director of the University of Minnesota’s State Health Access Data Assistance Center, director of Minnesota’s State Employee Group Insurance Program, president and CEO of MN Community Measurement, and as a state health policy consultant for Mathematica, Inc.