American Health Information Community: Members

Charles N. Kahn III
President
Federation of American Hospitals

Charles N. (“Chip”) Kahn III is President of the Federation of American Hospitals, the national advocacy organization for investor-owned hospitals and health systems. Mr. Kahn became the Federation’s President in June 2001.

Mr. Kahn is one of the nation’s preeminent experts on health policy and Medicare issues, and his leadership on health care issues and in the political arena is well-recognized. Since becoming President of the Federation, he has been listed every year on the “100 Most Powerful People in Healthcare” list published by Modern Healthcare magazine. In April, 2005, The Hill newspaper selected him as one of the capital’s top trade association lobbyists for the fifth consecutive year. Mr. Kahn also has been acknowledged as one of two “major movers” of an effort sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to bring together a diverse, “strange bedfellows” coalition of often-opposing major national advocacy organizations to seek solutions to extending health coverage to the uninsured.

Before coming to the Federation, Mr. Kahn was one of the nation’s top leaders in the health insurance industry. As President of the Health Insurance Association of America (HIAA), he focused national attention on the plight of the uninsured, effectively placing this issue at the forefront of the national public policy agenda. Under his leadership, HIAA dramatically increased its membership and prestige, and was named by Fortune magazine for three consecutive years as the nation’s most influential insurance trade association in its “Power 25” list of Washington, DC-based lobbying organizations.

In 1993 and 1994, as HIAA Executive Vice President, Mr. Kahn was instrumental in mounting the ground-breaking “Harry and Louise” campaign that called into question the Clinton health reform plan, a campaign characterized by Advertising Age magazine as “among the best conceived and executed public affairs advertising programs in history.” In 2000, Mr. Kahn brought back “Harry and Louise” as advocates for the uninsured, a move applauded even by traditional critics of the industry.

Mr. Kahn has a long and distinguished career as a professional staff member on Capitol Hill, specializing in health policy issues. During 1995-1998, he played a critical role in passage of significant health legislation while serving as staff director for the Health Subcommittee of the House Ways and Means Committee. During this period, he contributed to the development of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and the Medicare provisions of the 1997 Balanced Budget Act (BBA).

Mr. Kahn served from 1986-1993 as minority health counsel for the House Ways and Means Committee, where he played an integral role in the Committee’s extensive health legislative agenda. Earlier, he served as senior health policy advisor to former Senator David Durenberger (R-MN) during Senator Durenberger’s tenure as the Chairman of the Senate Finance Health Subcommittee, and as legislative assistant for health to former Senator Dan Quayle (R-IN).

At the start of his career in health policy, Mr. Kahn directed the Office of Financial Management Education at the Association of University Programs in Health Administration (AUPHA) – where he worked primarily on developing the health care financial management curriculum – after completing an administrative residency with the Teaching Hospital Department of the Association of American Medical Colleges.

On September 13, 2005, Michael Leavitt, Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), appointed Mr. Kahn as a Commissioner to the American Health Information Community (AHIC), a federal advisory panel responsible for developing, certifying, and setting national digital and interoperability standards for electronic health information technology.

Mr. Kahn is a member of the Board of Directors of Zix Corporation, a global provider of secure e-messaging, e-prescribing, and e-transaction applications and services, and serves as Chairman of the University of Michigan’s Economic Research Initiative on the Uninsured. He has numerous other advisory appointments, including as a member of the advisory board of The Future of Children, a journal about children’s policy managed jointly by Princeton University and the Brookings Institution; and as a member of the Advisory Committee for the Center for Studying Health Systems Change. He also is a member of Delta Omega, the national honorary public health society.

Mr. Kahn has taught health policy at The Johns Hopkins University, George Washington University, and Tulane University.

Additionally, he writes about health care financing; his paper, “Building a Consensus for Expanding Health Care Coverage,” co-authored with Ron Pollack of Families USA, appeared in Health Affairs (January, 2001). Mr. Kahn also co-authored “Budget Bills as Precedents for Medicare Policy: The Politics of the BBA” (Health Affairs, January/February 1999) and “Why We Should Keep the Employment-Based Health Insurance System” (Health Affairs, November/ December, 1999).

Mr. Kahn holds a Masters of Public Health (M.P.H.) degree from Tulane University’s School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, which in 2001 bestowed upon him its prestigious “Champion of Public Health” award. He also received a Bachelor of Arts degree from The Johns Hopkins University.