Andy Allison, PhD, MPP

Andy is a Senior Expert in McKinsey’s health care practice and works primarily with states and private payers. He has nearly twenty years’ experience in public service and policy-oriented research, most recently serving as Arkansas’ Medicaid Director from December 2011 through May 2014. In Arkansas he helped establish the state’s innovative health care payment reforms and took a leading role in the design and implementation of the “Private Option” coverage expansion. From 2005 until 2011 he ran or oversaw Kansas’ Medicaid and State Employee Health Plans, concluding with initiation of a procurement for KanCare, the most comprehensive managed care plan in the country at that time. From 1999 to 2005 he was a researcher focusing on state health policy issues at the Kansas Health Institute. He began his career in public service as a Medicaid budget analyst at the federal Office of Management and Budget (1992-1995) engaged primarily in analysis of federal health reform legislation and the review of statewide 1115 demonstration waiver applications. He was the founding board president for the National Association of Medicaid Directors and served in that position from 2010 to 2012. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Ouachita Baptist University in Arkansas, a master’s degree in Public Policy from Duke, and a doctorate in economics from Vanderbilt.