Areas of Expertise: legislative and administrative advocacy, nondiscrimination protections (including Section 1557 of the ACA & Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964), demographic data collection, ACA marketplaces & consumer assistance.
Mara Youdelman, J.D., L.L.M., is the Managing Director, Federal Advocacy at the National Health Law Program’s Washington D.C. office. Mara has worked at the National Health Law Program since 2000 on issues that include Medicaid & CHIP, the Affordable Care Act, language access, and civil rights (including Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act and demographic data collection). Mara coordinates the National Health Law Program’s federal legislative and administrative work, leading the organization’s efforts to protect and expand access to and the quality of health care for low-income and underserved populations. Mara also co-chairs The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights’ Health Care Task Force and its Policy & Enforcement Committee.
Mara is a leading and award-winning national expert on language access in health settings. She was a Founding Commissioner for the Certification Commission for Healthcare Interpreters (CCHI) and rejoined CCHI for another three-year term as Commissioner in 2023.
She was named a 2010 Health Reform Champion by SHIRE (the Summit Health Institute for Research and Education) and a 2011 Language Access Champion by the National Council on Interpreting in Health Care (NCIHC).
Before joining the National Health Law Program, Mara completed a teaching fellowship at Georgetown University Law Center’s Federal Legislation Clinic and spent two years litigating for the Administration for Children’s Services in New York City. Mara earned her LL.M. in Advocacy from Georgetown University Law Center in 2000, her J.D. from Boston University School of Law in 1996, and her B.A. from Tufts University in 1991. She also founded AWARE: Actively Working for Acquaintance Rape Education, an interactive educational program on acquaintance rape.
Before law school, Mara was the general manager of a non-profit theater company in the Boston area that produced and toured original productions based on social issues. She has bicycled twice from Washington, DC to Raleigh, NC, and twice from Boston, MA, to New York, NY to raise money for HIV and AIDS programs and research.
