Speakers Biographies
Medicaid Health Policy Academy
September 15-17, 2014
Washington, DC
Senator Edna Brown, Chair, CSG Health Policy Committee
Phone: (614) 466-5204
Edna Brown (D-Toledo) was elected to serve Ohio’s 11th Senate district in November, 2010. Prior to
joining the Senate, her dedication to public service led to a 32-year career as an employee with the city
of Toledo, followed by an eight-year tenure as a member of Toledo City Council. She moved to the
Statehouse in January 2002 to fill the Ohio House of Representatives seat of then newly-elected Toledo
mayor Jack Ford.
Senator Brown’s legislative interests include criminal justice reform, healthcare, the wellbeing of
children and families, and voting access. She serves on the Correctional Institution Inspection
Committee, the Ohio Public Employees Deferred Compensation Board, the Ohio Commission on
Minority Health and the Ohio Supreme Court Advisory Committee on Children, Families & the Courts.
Senator Brown currently serves as the Minority Whip in the Senate. She is First Vice President of the
Ohio Legislative Black Caucus, and serves on the Executive Committee of the National Black Caucus of
State Legislators.
Senator Brown has been appointed to the Health & Human Services, Economic Development and
Education Committees of the Midwest Council of State Governments.
Julia Paradise, Associate Director, Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured
Phone: (202)-347-5270
Julia Paradise is an Associate Director of the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured (KCMU),
a major program of the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF). Ms. Paradise leads much of KCMU’s work
related to child and adult access to care in Medicaid, spanning quantitative and qualitative studies of
beneficiary access and unmet needs, managed care and emerging models of service delivery, safety-net
providers and workforce issues, provider payment, and implications of the Affordable Care Act for
access.
Prior to joining KCMU in 2002, Ms. Paradise served for 11 years in HHS’ Office of the Assistant Secretary
for Planning and Evaluation and on detail to President Clinton’s Task Force on National Health Care
Reform, and earlier, as policy staff at the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association and the Centers for
Medicare and Medicaid Services (then HCFA). Ms. Paradise earned her Bachelor of Arts from Cornell
University and Master of Science in Public Health from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.
Paul Dioguardi, Director, Intergovernmental and External Affairs, DHHS
Email: hhsoea@hhs.gov Phone: (202) 690-6060
Paul Dioguardi serves as the Director of the Office of Intergovernmental and External Affairs at the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services. This includes strategic planning and implementation on a
range of high priority policies, programs, and initiatives. He manages a team of over 60 regional and
Washington, DC based HHS officials.
Paul is responsible for overseeing the Department’s engagement with state, local, territorial and tribal
governments as well as private sector businesses, nonprofit organizations, and other external partners.
He has been directly involved in the implementation of major Obama Administration priorities such as
the Affordable Care Act, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, and numerous other healthcare,
public health, and human services programs.
Paul has over twenty years of experience working in issue advocacy, political strategy, grassroots
organizing, management, and government. He began his career working for the late Sen. Edward M.
Kennedy. Paul is originally from Bayville, NY. He received a B.A. in Political Science from Boston College
and a Master’s Degree in Public Administration from Harvard University.
Nicole C. Jarrett, Ph.D., Senior Policy Analyst, Council of State Governments Justice Center
Email: njarrett@csg.org
Nicole Jarrett works on the Criminal Justice/Mental Health Consensus Project team and provides
support to some of the center’s health-related efforts. Prior to joining the CSG Justice Center, Dr. Jarrett
served as the Director of Health Policy research at the National Medical Association, where she worked
on a variety of research and stakeholder projects on improving systems of care for underserved
populations. She was also a Research and Evaluation Consultant to the Congressional Black Caucus
Foundation and the Director of Community Health Policy for the Baltimore City Health Department. She
received her B.S. in Public Health from Rutgers University and her Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University.
Thomas M. Moriarty, Executive Vice President and General Counsel, CVS Health
Thomas M. Moriarty is Executive Vice President and General Counsel of CVS Caremark. In this role since
October 2012, Moriarty leads the company’s legal and government affairs departments and the Office of
the Secretary.
A seasoned executive with many years of legal, regulatory and health policy experience in the health
care sector, Moriarty most recently served as General Counsel at the Celgene Corporation, a
biopharmaceutical company, where he was responsible for global legal strategy and served on the
company’s Management Committee.
Prior to that, Moriarty spent 12 years at Medco Health Solutions where he served as General Counsel
and Corporate Secretary, and also as President of Global Pharmaceutical Strategies. He served on the
company’s Executive Committee and was a critical advisor to the team that developed and executed
Medco’s strategic merger with Express Scripts.
Previously, Moriarty worked at various positions in the Office of the General Counsel at Merck & Co., the
global biopharmaceutical company. He began his career at the law firm of Mudge Rose Guthrie
Alexander and Ferdon in New York.
Paul G. Billings, Senior Vice President, Advocacy & Education, American Lung Association
Phone: (202) 785-3355
Paul Billings is the Vice President, National Policy & Advocacy for the American Lung Association. In this
capacity, he directs the Lung Association’s asthma, lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease,
clean air and tobacco control advocacy program. He is the lead lobbyist before the U.S. Congress on lung
health issues. In addition, he supervises the Lung Association’s state government relations program. Paul
Billings has worked for the American Lung Association for seventeen years.
Previously, he directed grassroots activities for the National Clean Air Coalition and he was an associate
with the FMR Group in Washington, D.C. A graduate of Bates College, he also attended Trinity College in
Dublin, Ireland. With their two daughters, Elizabeth and Katie, Paul and his wife Teresa, a public school
teacher, reside in Silver Spring, Maryland.
Jesse Cross-Call, Policy Analyst, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
Phone: (202)-408-1080
Jesse Cross-Call is a Policy Analyst in the Health Policy division of the Center on Budget and Policy
Priorities. In this role he examines issues related to the implementation of health reform and provides
information and technical assistance to state and local officials, providers, and nonprofit organizations
who are working on issues related to expanding coverage to the uninsured through Medicaid and the
new health reform marketplaces.
Prior to joining the Center, Cross-Call served as chief of staff to Alaska’s Senate Majority Leader where
he worked on the development of the state’s substance abuse treatment programs.
Cross-Call received his master’s in public administration from the Maxwell School at Syracuse University,
and a bachelor of arts in American History from Northwestern University.
Justin Senior, Florida Medicaid Director
Phone: (850) 412‐4007
Justin Senior is the Medicaid Director for the state of Florida. In this capacity, he supervisors over 600
employees in the administration of the Florida Medicaid Program, which provides health care to more
than 3.3 million people. Previously, he supervised over 40 attorneys and 25 support staff members at
the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration, which administers Florida’s Medicaid program and
licenses and regulates Florida’s health care facilities. Prior to that, Mr. Senior spent seven years
overseeing his law offices in Gainesville, Florida. A native of Australia, Senior came to the United States
when he was 3 and his family moved to Gainesville when he was 7. He attended college in Canada and
returned to Florida where he graduated from the University of Florida law school with honors.
John W. Koehn, President, Amerigroup New Jersey, Inc.
Email: John.Koehn@amerigroup.com Phone: (732) 452-6041
Mr. John Koehn is the president of Amerigroup New Jersey, Inc. Amerigroup, a Fortune 500 Company,
coordinates services for individuals in publicly funded health care programs. Amerigroup New Jersey
currently serves 154,000 members in 20 of the 21 counties in New Jersey; it was the Company’s first
health plan, beginning operations in February 1996. With more than 16 years of experience, Amerigroup
New Jersey has extensive experience in addressing the needs of New Jersey FamilyCare/Medicaid
members, crafting creative outreach and education strategies, and driving improved health outcomes.
Mr. Koehn received his masters from the University of Michigan in American history.
Alice Weiss, Program Director, National Academy for State Health Policy
Email: aweiss@nashp.org
Alice Weiss joined NASHP in 2007, and is the co-director of Maximizing Enrollment: Transforming State
Health Coverage, a national initiative funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation that aims to help
states increase enrollment and retention of eligible children in Medicaid and CHIP and establish and
promote best practices as states prepare enrollment and retention systems for health reform
implementation in 2014.
Alice also provides technical assistance expertise and leadership to other projects relating to eligibility
and enrollment issues, health reform implementation, children’s coverage, and Native American health
coverage. Alice came to NASHP from the U.S. Senate Finance Committee, where she was health counsel
for Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT), with primary responsibility for Medicaid, CHIP, and private health
insurance coverage issues. During her tenure at Finance, Alice helped write the bipartisan CHIP
Reauthorization Act (CHIPRA), Hurricane Katrina health relief legislation, and the Indian Health Care
Improvement Act and was integrally involved in Medicaid reform debates.
Alice has also held senior health policy positions at the National Partnership for Women & Families and
the U.S. Department of Labor’s Pension and Welfare Benefits Administration, supporting private
coverage and Medicaid reform legislative initiatives, most notably in her work on the Patients’ Bill of
Rights managed care reform legislation. She received a BA from Haverford College and a JD from
Northeastern University Law School.