Kristi Martin
Director

Kristi Martin provides policy expertise and strategic counsel to advance meaningful health policy that focuses on improving the health and wellbeing of people while delivering practical policy solutions. She draws on more than 20 years of experience working in the public sector, with private sector clients, and in philanthropy. Most recently, Kristi served as the chief of staff and senior advisor to the deputy administrator in the Center for Medicare at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). While serving at CMS, she played a significant role advancing regulatory policy in Medicare and implementing the Inflation Reduction Act — the most significant changes to Medicare Part D since its inception. Kristi facilitated and coordinated the implementation of the Medicare Drug Price Negotiation Program, which successfully negotiated the first set of drug prices under the Medicare Drug Price Negotiation Program that will save people with Medicare and the program billions of dollars on prescription drug costs as well as contributed to a wide range of other policy and operational initiatives that have made Medicare better than ever.

Kristi previously was the Vice President for Health Care at Arnold Ventures where she led the philanthropy’s prescription drug pricing portfolio and was the Managing Director of Waxman Strategies’ health practice where she worked alongside Congressman Henry Waxman to drive outcomes in health policy. She has previously served several years in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Personnel Management, and Government Accountability Office. As a senior advisor in the Obama administration’s Office of Health Reform, she had primary oversight responsibility for the coordinated and timely implementation of cross-cutting departmental public health and prevention initiatives under the Affordable Care Act, including addressing the rising cost of drugs and setting up the women’s preventive services initiative.

She received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in health communication from the University of Kentucky and a Master of Public Administration from George Washington University.

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