Jane Perkins, Litigation Director of the National Health Law Program (NHeLP) in Washington, DC, will receive Grantmakers In Health’s 2025 Andy Hyman Award for Advocacy. The award pays tribute to advocacy grantees who embody a commitment to principled action, passionate leadership to advance social change, and dedication to making progress in policy and practice despite challenging political environments. Ms. Perkins was nominated by Alyson Northup of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation with support from Gordon Bonnyman and Michelle Johnson of the Tennessee Justice Center and Sara Rosenbaum of the Milken Institute School of Public Health and the George Washington University School of Law. The award will be presented to Ms. Perkins at the 2025 GIH Annual Conference on Health Philanthropy in New Orleans, Louisiana.
For over 40 years, Ms. Perkins has made herself invaluable to the legal aid and disability rights communities and to low-income people seeking access to critical health care. Through her work at NHeLP, she has litigated more than 40 high-profile lawsuits across the country to protect and advance health for all. From 2017 through 2020, Ms. Perkins led litigation that blocked the administration’s approval of work requirements and other illegal obstacles to Medicaid coverage and services, saving hundreds of thousands of people from losing access to health care. Some of her other groundbreaking cases have involved Medicaid eligibility; the right to procedural due process; access to dental services; Medicaid coverage for lead blood testing for children; quality of care standards in residential placements; and preventative care for children in out-of-home placements. In an era where access to the courts is under threat, Ms. Perkins and her litigation and enforcement team are working to educate the courts and policymakers on issues of health and civil rights law and to litigate strategically to ensure that individual rights can be enforced and protected in federal and state courts.
At the same time as she has been litigating, Ms. Perkins has moved the national discourse forward on critical health care issues impacting low-income people by writing must-read articles about Medicaid, civil rights, and access to the courts. She was also highly involved in ensuring the passage of the Affordable Care Act, notably its non-discrimination provision (Section 1557). Ms. Perkins is particularly passionate about Medicaid’s guarantee of health services for children, Medicaid’s Early and Periodic Screening, Diagnostic and Treatment (EPSDT) benefit.
In addition to her leadership role at NHeLP, Ms. Perkins also served in the Attorney General’s office in Maryland as well as Counsel to the Governor’s Task Force on Health Care Cost Containment. Ms. Perkins received her Juris Doctor degree from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill School of Law and a Master of Public Health degree from the University of California, Berkley.
In selecting Ms. Perkins, this year’s committee members lauded her work as an incredible advocate for the health, rights, and dignity of all people in the U.S., particularly in protecting hundreds of thousands of eligible people from losing access to health care through Medicaid.