Pocket Profile: Senate policy adviser Katie Meyer Simeon

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Examiner: Tell us about your journey to Washington and the work you do now.

Simeon: I grew up in the area; I’m a local girl. I grew up around Washington and that world and have always been interested in politics. I also went to school in Charlottesville, which made it easier to do internships on the Hill. I did my undergraduate in economics and then earned a master’s degree in public policy.

I started out interning on the House Ways and Means Committee, which gave me my first taste of committee work. I loved the idea of being able to specialize in a topic. I like being a staffer, especially on a committee, because you get to be a technical resource and help other staffers and members think through issues and get the things done they want to do.

Examiner: And how did you end up in the healthcare policy space?

Simeon: You know, I actually didn’t intend to get into healthcare policy specifically. I studied tax and trade policy in school, and I think a lot of people who end up in healthcare policy fall into it in that way. When I started working for Rep. Erik Paulsen on Ways and Means, my portfolio included healthcare, and this was right after the ACA [Affordable Care Act] passed. I spent most of my time in that job doing healthcare, and it was a crash course on health policy. When I moved over the finance committee, they wanted me to do healthcare full-time.

Examiner: What do you think the fall is going to bring for the committee?

Simeon: It’s going to be an admittedly busy fall. One of the major things I’m working on is a chronic care working group initiative. The committee solicited comments from stakeholders about ways to improve the coordination of care for Medicare beneficiaries with multiple chronic conditions. So I’m spending a lot of time reading those comments and meeting with stakeholder groups about how to improve that system. The goal is to have a bill that we may be able to move on later this year. Of course, a lot of the agenda and congressional attention this fall is going to be taken up by other issues. There’s a lot the Congress needs to get done before the year is out, so I’m not sure how much airtime healthcare will get. There’s been a lot of bipartisan interest in the small group insurance market fix in the ACA. There’s a lot of energy toward getting something done on that.

Examiner: What policy issue have you worked on that you think deserves wider attention?

Simeon: One of the things I enjoyed working on most, and have worked on for my whole career, is the medical device tax repeal. When the healthcare law was being written, the authors needed to find revenue for the credits and some of the other provisions in the law. One of the sources of revenue was a tax levied on the medical device industry. Medical device companies make innovative products, and my bosses have believed, and I believe, that those products are important to patient care. And our view is that you can potentially delay or reduce innovation on those products if you tax those companies; you may even create a set of circumstances in which products that were going to see the light of day now don’t because of the tax.

In some ways, it’s tough to say I’m proudest of that work because we haven’t gotten it done yet, but when I worked for Rep. Paulsen, it wasn’t obvious that the issue would get as much traction as it did. Rep. Paulsen was great at talking to members one-on-one and getting them engaged on the issue and getting that issue on people’s minds. There were any number of things in the health policy space that could’ve gotten attention, including ACA tax repeals, for instance, but working with Rep. Paulsen and the stakeholders to put that front-and-center on the agenda is something I’m proud of. I work for another boss now, Sen. [Orrin] Hatch, who keeps this as a top priority and so I’m privileged to keep working on it.

Examiner: What do you do in your spare time?

Simeon: During the downtimes, I do appreciate the time I spend with my husband. We travel. And then I have a hobby, which is quilting. I enjoy making quilts and making gifts for my friends. My grandmother was a quilter, and I grew up with her quilts all over my home. A couple years ago, for a New Year’s resolution, I said this is something I want to learn for my heritage. It’s satisfying to make something with your hands. In this line of work, you have to wait a long time before you see a tangible result, so it’s satisfying to make things with your hands and see the result right away.

This article appears in the Sept. 8 edition of the Washington Examiner magazine.