Ms. Murray is a national expert on health care policy for low income people and is a frequent speaker on these issues at national conferences and in the media.  She has also published several articles on the German health care system as a result of an Alexander von Humboldt fellowship in Berlin. Her expertise and writings have been featured in major trade publications and newspapers.

Ms. Murray received her MPA from the Woodrow Wilson School of Princeton University and her B.A., cum laude, in Economics and Classical Civilization, from Wellesley College.

Prior to leading ACAP, Ms. Murray was the Medicaid Director for the State of New Jersey and oversaw the expansion of the FamilyCare program to cover all children under 350% of poverty. She was also a senior budget analyst for the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, with responsibility for negotiating the budget neutrality agreements for Medicaid managed care waivers. She was recently reappointed to the Maryland Community Health Resources Commission and has served on the board of a Community Health Center in Southern Maryland.

Ms. Murray was featured in the December 2010 issue of Managed Healthcare Executive.

Deborah Kilstein, Vice President for Quality Management and Operational Support

Debbie brings more than 30 years experience working with the publicly insured. She has served in various leadership positions at the New Jersey Department of Human Services, including Medicaid Director and Deputy Commissioner, in which she managed the provision of social services for more than one million New Jersey residents. She has also worked at the Center for Health Care Services and Horizon NJ Health, an ACAP member plan. Debbie has a BSN from The College of New Jersey, an MBA from Temple University, and a law degree from Rutgers School of Law-Camden.

As Vice President for Medicare, Mary Kennedy works with the community based, not- for- profit health plans in ACAP who are operating or establishing Special Needs Plans and managed long term care programs. Mary returned to ACAP in November 2010 after a ten month deployment to serve as Senior Policy Advisor on Health Reform in the Center for Medicaid, CHIP, Survey and Certification, CMSO, at the Department of Health and Human Services. Before joining ACAP in 2008, she served as a Vice President and later, Senior Vice President for Evercare focusing on integrated care for dual eligibles.

Most of her career has been in public service. Ms. Kennedy has held a variety of positions related to health care reform, Medicaid and state health care programs for close to 30 years within both the Minnesota Department of Human Services and the Minnesota Department of Health.

From 1997 until late 2004, she served as Minnesota’s Medicaid Director, responsible for federal Medicaid and S-CHIP relations and securing federal funding for the state’s public health care programs. Part of her role as Medicaid Director included management of DHS health initiatives with tribes and urban American Indian communities.

She also served as Assistant Commissioner for Health Care at the Department of Human Services, directing eligibility policy for Minnesota Care, Medical Assistance and General Assistance Medical Care; and activities related to purchasing health care, measuring the performance of contracted health plans, and detecting fraud and abuse among providers and recipients.

From 1992 - July 1994 she served as Senior Health Advisor and later, Director, Health Care Delivery Policy at the Minnesota Department of Health where she was responsible for the management of the policy activities related to the Minnesota Care health reform initiatives, the Health Economics program and the Office of Rural Health.

During her Medicaid Director tenure Ms. Kennedy served as Vice Chair of the National Association of State Medicaid Directors, chaired the Medicaid Quality Technical Advisory Group, served as a member of the National Committee on Quality Assurance’s (NCQA) Committee on Performance Measurement and represented Medicaid issues as a member of the 2003/2004 Board of Directors of the National Quality Forum.

Mary earned her Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of Minnesota.  

Kathy Kuhmerker, Vice President for Medicaid Policy

Kathy is a former Director of New York State’s Medicaid program, where she implemented New York State’s 1115 waiver establishing the Family Health Plus program for low-income adults. She led the Department of Health’s efforts to rebalance the State’s long-term care system and implemented the State’s replacement Medicaid Management Information System.  Kathy directed the Medicaid program’s innovative response to the September 11 attack on the World Trade Center, which allowed New York to enroll over 340,000 individuals who might otherwise not have had access to needed health care.

Most recently, Kathy was a Vice President at The Lewin Group in Falls Church, Va. She used her background in state health care, human services and government operations to assist states in meeting their goals of providing innovative, cost-effective and efficient health care programs to meet the needs of their citizens. Prior to becoming the Medicaid Director, Kathy spent more than two decades working for the NYS Division of the Budget, which gave her broad knowledge of issues related to Medicaid, health care, housing, mental retardation and developmental disabilities, transportation and state financing. She participated in developing several of the State’s most highly-rated bond programs.  Kathy has also run her own consulting firm. She received her Master of Business Administration, with a major in Health Systems Administration, from Union College in Schenectady, New York and also has a Bachelor of Arts degree, with a major in Anthropology, from the State University of New York at Binghamton.

Jeff Van Ness, Senior Communications Director

Jeff Van Ness joined ACAP in June 2011 as its Senior Director of Communications. He is ACAP’s point of contact for the media and responsible for all internal and external communications pieces at ACAP, including the member newsletter, the Web site, fact sheets and other documents that support ACAP’s operational and policy objectives.

Jeff is an experienced communications professional with more than 15 years’ experience in health care and communications. Jeff’s past roles include serving as Director of Communications for the National Committee for Quality Assurance and Vice President of Communications and Marketing at the Healthcare Distribution Management Association, a group representing pharmaceutical wholesale and specialty distributors. His first job in Washington was working in enrollment at the Medicaid division of a Northern Virginia health plan. He lives with his wife in Bethesda, Md.

Joseph Person, Senior Program Associate

Joseph came to ACAP in 2011 after earning his M.P.P. degree from the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan with a focus on domestic health policy. His coursework entailed evaluating Millennium Development Goal progress onsite in the nation of Grenada, interning at The Center for Global and Intercultural Study, where he conducted program evaluation, and interning with Amnesty International’s Government Relations unit. 

After earning his Bachelor of Arts from the University of Michigan, Joseph had worked for William Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, Mich., and for The Program on Intergroup Relations in Ann Arbor, Mich., where he coordinated a large-scale research project.

Before his graduate studies, Joseph had worked in Sydney, Australia registering American citizens to vote in the 2008 Presidential election.

Tim Murphy, Program Associate