Joan Alker

Contact Joan

Download Info

Bio
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, the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) and the Affordable Care Act (ACA). 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

New Study Finds Arkansas Medicaid Work Requirement Isn’t Working

As readers of SayAhhh! know, we have been closely following the developments in Arkansas – which was the first state to implement a Medicaid work requirement in the second half of 2018 before a federal judge stepped in and put a hold on the state’s Section 1115 waiver. However, prior to the court’s intervention, more […]

Georgetown CCF’s Tricia Brooks Appointed to MACPAC

We at Georgetown CCF are so thrilled to announce that today the Comptroller General of the United States and head of the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) appointed Georgetown University Center for Children and Families Senior Fellow Tricia Brooks to the Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission (MACPAC). The Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2009 […]

Where Does the Trump Administration’s Medicaid Waiver Policy Go Next?

Last week was a busy week with a federal court vacating both Arkansas and Kentucky’s Medicaid Section 1115 waivers on Wednesday and the Trump Administration approving Utah’s partial expansion waiver with a work requirement and an enrollment cap on Friday—but without the full expansion match. (Read more on Utah past and present). Given the immediate […]