Justine
Handelman

Justine Handelman is a leading government affairs executive and political strategist with extensive experience influencing public policy at the federal and state levels. She excels at building high-performing teams and coalitions to achieve legislative and regulatory outcomes. She has been extensively quoted in national media and was named a Top Lobbyist by The Hill multiple times.

As senior vice president of the Office of Policy and Representation for the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association (BCBSA), Ms. Handelman led a 50+ person team that represented BCBSA and its 34 independent, Blue Cross and Blue Shield (BCBS) Plans as a unified voice before Congress, the administration, government agencies, state-based organizations and other national associations.

Ms. Handelman has three decades of experience in providing political and communications strategies, policy development and federal representation on legislative, regulatory, and federal and state policy issues pertaining to public and private healthcare. During her tenure, she has developed key policy positions that were incorporated in legislation enacted by Congress and subsequent federal regulations on key healthcare issues, including the Medicare Modernization Act, the Affordable Care Act, the Inflation Reduction Act, multiple COVID-19 response packages as well as legislation to address mental health parity, the opioid endemic and advance health information technology, to name a few.

Prior to joining BCBSA, Ms. Handelman was the director of the Health Care Practice Group in the Government Relations Division of SmithBucklin. In this capacity, she was responsible for the day-to-day government relations activities for several non-profit professional medical specialty societies and healthcare organizations.  Prior to joining the Smith, Bucklin team, she served as a senior legislative associate of MARC Associates, Inc.

Ms. Handelman received her bachelor’s degree in political science from the Catholic University of America.