The 2026 budget act signed into law on July 4 will impact the health of millions of Americans — especially those on Medicaid and other safety net programs including SNAP. How can journalists wrap their arms around these massive changes?
Panelists will highlight what aspects journalists should pay close attention to right now and how to use the power of storytelling to make these coming changes real for audiences.
August 1 @ 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm EDT
Lara Salahi
AHCJ Health Beat Leader for Health Equity
Lara Salahi is AHCJ’s health beat leader on health equity. She’s an award-winning, independent health journalist based in Boston, whose work has appeared in local, national and international television and digital news outlets. She is also the Distinguished Professor of Journalism at Endicott College in Beverley, Mass.
Joe Burns
AHCJ Health Beat Leader for Health Policy and Insurance
Joseph Burns is AHCJ’s health beat leader on health policy and insurance. He’s an independent journalist based in Brewster, Mass., who has covered health care, health policy and the business of care since 1991. Burns has written for a variety of publications, including The New York Times, Fortune, Hospitals & Health Networks, and Medical Economics, among others.
Early in his journalism career, Burns worked as a reporter in Connecticut, first for The Wallingford Post (a weekly), and then The Meriden Record-Journal (a daily), and later for The Hartford Courant (the largest daily newspaper in the state and the nation’s oldest newspaper). For The Courant, he was a reporter, copy editor and regional news editor. During this time, he also taught news writing at the University of Connecticut.
Joanne Kenen
Journalist-in-Residence, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
Contributing writer, Politico Magazine
Long-time health reporter on and off Capitol Hill. Oversaw all the health coverage at Politico for about a decade – now I’m a contributing writer to Politico Magazine, and the Journalist-in-Residence at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, where I also teach. I’m a regular on the KHN “What the Health” podcast. I was AHCJ’s first topic leader (on health reform) and the conferences are a highlight of my year. @JoanneKenen
Kristen Jordan Shamus
Health reporter, Detroit Free Press
Shamus’ work has taken her across the Mitten State, the U.S. and to Europe. There, she covered the stories of children who were evacuated from war-torn Ukraine to eastern Poland. She also led coverage of the coronavirus pandemic and its impact on Michiganders.
Over the past two decades, Shamus has worked as a reporter, an editor and columnist including at the Oakland Press and the News-Herald Newspapers. Shamus was among 20 journalists selected in 2019 for a National Press Foundation fellowship, was a Mayo Clinic-Cronkite Medical Journalism fellow and a finalist for three consecutive years for the Richard Milliman Michigan Journalist of the Year award from the Michigan Press Association Foundation.
Katherine Hempstead, Ph.D.
Senior policy officer, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
Hempstead works on healthcare issues, mostly those related to health insurance, costs, and access to care, using data and analyses to illuminate policy discussions at the federal and state levels. She is particularly interested making new sources of data that can inform policy available to researchers and the public sector. Hempstead frequently speaks and writes about health insurance and other healthcare topics. She is also an active researcher, and has authored numerous articles in the peer reviewed literature.