New to N.A.C.H., but Not New to Children’s Health Policy

By John Knapp, N.A.C.H. Director, Federal Affairs

My name is John Knapp and this week I joined the National Association of Children’s Hospitals (N.A.C.H.) as Director, Federal Affairs. The nice folks who run the With All Our Might blog (that would be Aimee!) thought that this might be a good forum for me to introduce myself as the newest member of the public policy team.

I am very excited to be joining an organization dedicated to helping protect health care for children.  As the father of two young daughters, I feel a special affinity for the mission of N.A.C.H. I am also honored to be working with an association that is so well respected in Washington and to be part of the great team that N.A.C.H. already has in place.  Everyone here has been incredibly welcoming and made me feel like part of the team from day one. (Despite the fact that the building lost power on my first day. Coincidence? ) 

By way of background, I have been involved in lobbying and government relations in Washington for the last 15 years. During that entire time, federal health care programs have been the primary focus of my work, and for the last dozen years, I have been working with hospitals on a daily basis.  So I come to N.A.C.H. with a background in Medicaid, Medicare and other federal health care programs. During health care reform, I had the opportunity to work with N.A.C.H., lobbying Capitol Hill on pediatric reimbursement under Medicaid.

I think that I’m joining N.A.C.H. at a very interesting moment as we transition from the long legislative slog that was enactment of health care reform, to the potentially much longer journey that will be the implementation of the new law. I am very much looking forward to helping children’s hospitals navigate the challenges that implementation of health care reform will bring and helping to identify and cultivate support on Capitol Hill for the children’s hospital agenda.

I look forward to getting to know as many of our members as possible over the coming weeks and hope that folks will feel free to contact me at any time with questions or on any matter where I can be helpful. Thanks for giving me a couple minutes of your time.

Comments

[Carol]

This is great news! We need more hands to do more good work.

[Kids Welfare]

As you are excited joining (N.A.C.H.), so are we..as kids will now be taken special care and given moral support.. ur blog makes the readers quite fascinating and we ourselves can feel ur dedication and enthusiasm towards kids health..

[Kids health care]

Congrats John Knapp for your new post in N.A.C.H. You have been in good place to make awareness among the kids. I like your great attitude. Im waitng for your next post for some kids health tips.