Katherine Howitt

Associate Director of Policy

As Associate Director of Policy, Katherine Howitt leads Community Catalyst’s efforts to close the coverage gap. She oversees a team that provides strategic guidance and policy support to campaigns in states across the country to extend health care coverage to low-income adults. She has seven years of experience providing policy and strategy support to consumer advocacy groups, and she coordinated a campaign at Community Catalyst to improve the affordability of health insurance subsidies in the Affordable Care Act.

Before joining Community Catalyst, Katherine conducted research with the Harvard School of Public Health on health care quality and disparities between racial and ethnic groups. Katherine is a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute for Community Health Leadership, and holds a master's degree in economics from the University of British Columbia.

Katherine Howitt's Blog and Newsletter Posts

Nov 07, 2018

Behind the headlines: How support for Medicaid shaped the midterms

Utah, Nebraska and Idaho are the three most obvious illustrations of this phenomenon.

Jun 01, 2018

Virginia’s Vote to Expand Medicaid is Significant—Here’s Why

After six long years of legislative inaction on closing the Medicaid coverage gap, the Virginia legislature voted this week to expand Medicaid.

Jan 25, 2018

Voters Weigh in For Medicaid (Again)

In a special election two days ago, Oregonians voted overwhelmingly in support of their Medicaid program. Over 60 percent of voters cast their ballot in favor of keeping the provider taxes that cover the state’s share of Medicaid expansion costs....

Nov 08, 2017

Policymakers Across the Country Take Note: Maine Voters Weigh in For Coverage, Against Obstruction

Yesterday, the people of Maine voted overwhelmingly to extend Medicaid coverage to 70,000 low-income Mainers. This finally ends the five-year-long battle to close the coverage gap in the state. Maine’s legislature has passed Medicaid expans...

Jun 27, 2017

You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet: What’s Lurking Beyond the Horizon of the CBO Score

By now, you’ve already seen the key takeaways from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) score of the Senate repeal bill. But what you might not know is that the CBO score hides the most devastating of the Senate bill’s effects.

May 23, 2017

Trump Budget Attacks Low-Income Communities, State Budgets, Children

Despite his repeated promises on the campaign trail that he would not cut Medicaid, President Trump’s FY 2018 budget would slash the program’s budget nearly in half over the next decade. The budget assumes the $839 billion in Medicaid cuts ...

May 10, 2016

Full Steam Ahead! Advocates Shaping the Conversation on Closing the Gap in Idaho

After years of silence within the Idaho Legislature on closing the coverage gap, and no visible intention of addressing it in the 2016 legislative session, advocates refused to leave 78,000 Idahoans in the gap and successfully shifted the conversation ...

Jan 14, 2016

Closing the Coverage Gap: How a Sweet Deal Might Get Even Sweeter

Talk about sweetening the pot. Today, the White House announced that President Obama’s Proposed 2017 Budget will create a new incentive for the remaining 19 states to close the coverage gap and insure millions of Americans. President Obama’...

Apr 20, 2015

People Prevail Over Politics in Montana

This week, Montana becomes the 29th state (plus the District of Columbia) to close the coverage gap, and the first state to get legislative approval to expand Medicaid in over a year.

Mar 20, 2015

Slow but Steady: Red States Make Progress Closing the Coverage Gap

A few recent headlines suggest that red states stopped making progress on closing the coverage gap, but these headlines don’t accurately describe the coverage gap debate.

Katherine Howitt

Support Our Work:

Our Work Around the Country