Staff

Catherine Hess
Program Director

Catherine Hess joined the National Academy for State Health Policy's Washington, DC office in May 2005. NASHP is a non-partisan, non-profit organization dedicated to promoting excellence in state policy and practice through policy analysis and through convening and supporting state policymakers. As a Senior Program Director, she develops and implements programs in areas that currently include high performance health systems; community health safety nets; and child health coverage, including CHIP and cover all children initiatives. Ms. Hess has over twenty five years of senior and executive level state and national health policy experience. She was the first Executive Director of the national Association of Maternal and Child Health Programs (AMCHP), a position she held for fourteen years. AMCHP's and Ms. Hess' work were recognized by numerous awards, including the first HHS Dr. Vince L. Hutchins Partnership Award to Ms. Hess in 2001. From 2002 to 2005 Ms. Hess worked as an independent health policy consultant to clients that included the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the National Institute for Health Care Management, the United Hospital Fund, the New York Academy of Medicine, the Lewin Group, Health Systems Research and state health agencies. She holds adjunct faculty appointments at both Johns Hopkins and George Washington Universities' schools of public health. In the 1980s, Ms. Hess served as Director of the Policy Office for the Massachusetts Department of Public Health's Division of Family Health. While there, she staffed and wrote the report for the state's Task Force on Prevention of Infant Mortality which resulted in the country's first state-financed maternity care insurance program, Healthy Start. Ms. Hess graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Rochester and has a Master of Social Work from the Boston University School of Social Work.

Alan Weil
Program Co-Director

Alan R. Weil, J.D., M.P.P., has been executive director of the National Academy for State Health Policy since September of 2004. Previously, Mr. Weil served for seven years as director of the Assessing the New Federalism project at the Urban Institute, one of the largest privately funded social policy research projects ever undertaken in the United States. He has also held a cabinet position as executive director of the Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing; was health policy advisor to Colorado Governor Roy Romer; and was assistant general counsel in the Massachusetts Department of Medical Security. He is the editor of two books: Welfare Reform: The Next Act and Federalism and Health Policy, and has authored chapters in a number of books and published articles in journals including Health Affairs and Inquiry.

Mr. Weil was an appointed member of President Clinton's Advisory Commission on Consumer Protection and Quality in the Health Care Industry, which drafted the patient's bill of rights. He is a member of the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured, the Commonwealth Fund Commission on a High Performance Health System, and serves on advisory committees for three Robert Wood Johnson Foundation projects. He is a member of the board of directors of the National Public Health and Hospitals Institute, and of the editorial board of State Health Watch.

Mr. Weil is a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley, and received his M.P.P. degree from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and his J.D. from Harvard Law School.

Alice Weiss
Deputy Director

Alice M. Weiss joined the National Academy for State Health Policy in October 2007. At NASHP, she manages projects to maximize enrollment of children eligible for public health coverage and contributes to work on the State Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) and promoting health coverage for all children. Ms. Weiss previously served as Majority Health Counsel for Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) of the U.S. Senate Finance Committee, with primary responsibility for Medicaid, CHIP and private health insurance coverage issues. During her tenure at Finance, Ms. Weiss helped to write the bipartisan CHIP Reauthorization Act, Hurricane Katrina health relief legislation, and the Indian Health Care Improvement Act. Ms. Weiss also has served as the director of health policy for the National Partnership for Women & Families and as a legislative and policy advisor on ERISA-regulated private employer-sponsored health coverage for the U.S. Department of Labor. She received her Bachelor of Arts from Haverford College and her Juris Doctorate from Northeastern University Law School.

Maureen Hensley-Quinn
Policy Specialist

Prior to joining the staff of the NASHP in March 2007, Maureen Hensley-Quinn was the Medical Specialist at the Community Transportation Association of America (CTAA). At CTAA, Maureen focused on the public’s access to health care through analysis of Medicaid and transportation policies at the state and national levels. Prior to working at CTAA, Maureen was employed by the Massachusetts State Attorney General’s Office within its Insurance Division as a Mediator/Legal Analyst. In this role she advocated on behalf of Massachusetts’ residents for improved treatment and coverage, particularly in health care (both public and private). Maureen received a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Merrimack College in Massachusetts and earned a Master’s degree in Public Affairs from the John W. McCormack School of Public Policy, University of Massachusetts in Boston.