Julie Hamos

Senior Advisor, Office of Medicaid Innovation at the University of Illinois

Julie Hamos has had a long career as policy advocate, public interest attorney, state legislator and state agency director. She discovered her interest in lobbying and government as the first staff attorney hired for the newly formed Subcommittee on Oversight of the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee in 1975. For the next 20 years, Julie championed public interest policies and community issues at the state level, both inside and outside of government, with a deep appreciation for the need for bipartisan problem-solving and negotiations to achieve results.  

Julie served as State Representative from 1998 for over 11 years, sponsoring and passing ground-breaking legislation on numerous issues, including comprehensive funding and reform of the regional transit system; a statewide energy efficiency building code; affordable housing policies and rental subsidies; universal hearing screening for all newborns; reform of the long-term care system for older adults; comprehensive rewrite of the Telecommunications Act; creation of the Children’s Mental Health Act, and more. She has been honored as “top legislator” by over 50 organizations and was selected as a fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government for Senior Executives in State and Local Government. 

When the Affordable Care Act was enacted in 2010, Julie was appointed as the cabinet-level Director of the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services to help lead Illinois in its implementation. With a $20.5 billion budget and a staff of 2,200, Julie and her team were successful in redesigning the Medicaid healthcare delivery system, expanding Medicaid coverage to over half million Illinois residents, modernizing major technology systems, and bringing fiscal discipline to the Medicaid budget.

Currently, Julie continues her service to the state as Senior Advisor at the Office of Medicaid Innovation at the University of Illinois, assigned to projects that support the Illinois Medicaid Program. 

Julie has a J.D. degree from George Washington University National Law Center in Washington DC, and a B.A. degree from Washington University in St. Louis. She was born in Budapest, Hungary, the daughter of Holocaust survivors, and escaped with her family during the 1956 Hungarian Revolution.