This episode features the brilliant Katy Talento. Here she discusses her incredibly fascinating and unique career path. She also dives into what it is like being a healthcare policy advisor and share some fascinating stories from her time in that role. Dark money, big healthcare’s influence on Washington, surprise billing and many more topics are covered in this can’t miss episode.

Katy Talento, president of KFT Consulting, is a licensed health benefits consultant, veteran health policy advisor and epidemiologist. She recently left the White House as the top health advisor to President Donald Trump on the Domestic Policy Council, where her job was to advance the president’s agenda to increase health care price transparency and price competition, end surprise medical bills, lower prescription drug prices, expand affordable options in the individual and group/ERISA markets, reduce the burdens of the Affordable Care Act, promote innovative employer sponsored coverage models, expand health IT interoperability, combat the opioids and other drug addiction crisis, eliminate domestic HIV/AIDS, and promote bioethics in life sciences. 

Prior to her White House appointment, Katy served five U.S. Senators over a 15-year period, including as top health advisor and manager of legislative staff and oversight investigators. She also worked in the private sector helping multinational energy companies protect their global workforce from infectious diseases such as malaria, dengue and the largest community-based HIV/AIDS service organization in the US. On the faculty at Georgetown University Medical School, Katy managed the Washington site of a multi-site NIH-funded pulmonology study. 

A compelling communicator, Katy has delivered speeches to large audiences, served as Director of Speechwriting for the Republican National Committee during the successful 2010 election cycle, and has written a number of published opinion pieces, web copy, and video scripts. She spent two years as a Catholic nun and has worked with the poorest of the poor from East Africa, to industrial Russia and inner-city America. Katy received a Master of Science degree in Infectious Disease Epidemiology from Harvard School of Public Health and an undergraduate degree in Sociology from the University of Virginia. She lives in suburban northern Virginia with her husband and two children.  [...]