Welcome Message from Kate McEvoy, NAMD’s New Executive Director

Dear colleagues:

I am privileged to let you know that I have formally begun work as NAMD’s new Executive Director. Thank you so much for the honor of serving you in this role. My grateful thanks, also, to Dianne Hasselman for serving the organization on both a longstanding and interim executive basis. She and all of the staff, partnering with our brilliant Board of Directors, continue to do remarkable work.

Notable among that work was the association’s Fall meeting, which captured so much of the instant policy and operational moment for you as directors and programs. There were myriad opportunities for connection, fellowship, and learning, but perhaps the most significant result of the meeting was the consensus position on operational features of unwinding that was developed and promoted by our Board, working with Jack Rollins and Hannah Maniates. It was gratifying and exemplary to see how closely the provisions of the omnibus spending package signed by the President tracked with NAMD’s position around certainty of timing and process of unwinding. It was also terrific to see other major priorities of the association reflected, including adequate federal match for the territories and companion resources around social drivers of health (SNAP, LIHEAP, assistance for individuals experiencing homelessness).

While I recognize that unwinding is a necessary, urgent area of focus on which we will be partnering with you at every step, I also want to acknowledge that it is not the only matter that is high on your list of priorities. Other emerging themes that we are hearing from the regional calls including budget constraints and challenges in sustaining pandemic investments as federal support sunsets, challenges around workforce, and the not-small task of holding both your staff and your beneficiaries in hope, confidence and forward momentum.

I see this as an extremely important moment in time for NAMD. We are leaping off incredible strengths and vital history with NAMD’s policy leadership, multi-faceted leadership agenda, operational modernization and emerging areas of focus. We have extraordinary leadership from a committed Board. We also have new opportunities and obligations as we transition from leadership of the founding Executive Director, migration from the pandemic to what lies ahead, and the chance to mutually define who and what we are, going forward.

From my standpoint, I see those opportunities as focusing in the following ways.

• Operational emphasis on:
  • improving the federal-state partnership;
  • administrative practices around disparities; and
  • strategic partnerships with lawmakers, MACPAC and other stakeholders in Medicaid
• Programmatic emphasis on:
  • capital to support Medicaid innovation;
  • behavioral health integration; and
  • LTSS.

I know that we can continue to take on these significant, continuing challenges as people of conscience, transcending the partisan divide, and finding and applying locally relevant solutions.

CMCS has noted that as of September, 2022, your programs were serving almost 84 million people through Medicaid and over 7 million people through CHIP. You and your staff are a mainstay of health supports and an important contributor to the economic security to the communities you serve. We recognize the enormity of that, celebrate your continuing service, and want to support you in ways that feel meaningful and relevant. I will be reaching out to each one of you over the course of the next month to hear more about how we can do that.

In partnership,
Kate