Joan Alker

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Bio

Joan Alker

Joan Alker is the Executive Director and a Co-Founder of the Center for Children and Families (CCF), and a Research Professor at the Georgetown University McCourt School of Public Policy. Her work focuses on health coverage for low-income children and families, with an emphasis on Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). Two of her most recent reports examine the role of Medicaid in rural areas and the nation's progress on covering children. She has authored numerous reports and studies on a range of issues including Medicaid waivers, premium assistance, and was the principal investigator of a multi-year study on Florida's Medicaid program.

A frequent speaker and commentator, Alker has twenty-five years of experience working on issues affecting low-income families. She holds a Master of Philosophy in politics from St. Antony’s College, Oxford University and a Bachelor of Arts with honors in political science from Bryn Mawr College.

Please contact Cathy Hope (catherine.hope@georgetown.edu) with media queries or to set up an interview with Joan.

Latest From Joan

The New Year Brings Good News to Uninsured Idahoans; Providers are Ready to Go

With all of the challenges facing the health care world these days, I decided to write my first blog of 2020 about some good news happening in Idaho. As of January 1st, over 50,000 Idahoans were enrolled in Medicaid expansion coverage finally bringing to fruition the ballot initiative passed handily by voters in November 2018. […]

Federal Investigators Discover Improprieties in Medicaid Work Requirement Spending

My father, a professor, used to always say the most interesting part of a paper can often be found in the footnotes. And a recent report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) on administrative spending in Medicaid Section 1115 work requirement waivers support his claim. I recently read every word of the report, including all […]

Renewing Bipartisan Commitment to Help Uninsured Children Should be Top Priority

Today we released our ninth annual report that tracks children’s health insurance coverage at the state and national level. This report looks at two-year trends from 2016 to 2018 analyzing American Community Survey data from the Census Bureau. We believe this is the first national report to look at this two-year time period, a time […]