Dive Brief:
The Federation of American Hospitals has tapped Charlene MacDonald as its next CEO, the for-profit hospital association said Tuesday.
MacDonald is succeeding Chip Kahn, who announced his retirement earlier this year. Kahn is stepping down after almost 25 years at the helm of the FAH.
MacDonald previously led the FAH’s lobbying, public affairs and communications efforts, and oversaw its finance and operations teams. She’ll start as CEO on Jan. 1.
Dive Insight:
FAH, an influential lobby on Capitol Hill, has been ramping up its advocacy efforts this year amid a flurry of health policy changes in Congress, many unfriendly to hospitals.
FAH spent almost $2.9 million on advocacy in the first nine months of 2025, compared to almost $2.4 million in all of last year, according to federal disclosures.
Still, those efforts have proved largely fruitless. The Republican-controlled Congress pushed through steep cuts to Medicaid in the tax and policy megabill passed this summer, and seem set to let more generous subsidies for Affordable Care Act plans to expire. Slashing federal insurance programs increases the number of the uninsured, which has bad downstream effects on hospitals given that also increases the amount of care they provide that they never get paid for.
U.S. providers are set to lose roughly $770 billion in revenue over the next decade from the GOP’s “Big Beautiful Bill,” while hospitals and doctors could lose $32 billion in revenue next year from the expiration of the ACA subsidies alone, according to estimates from the Urban Institute.
“This is a pivotal time for tax-paying hospitals — one that requires strategic partnership with stakeholders across the industry and with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle,” MacDonald said in a statement.
Charlene MacDonald, incoming CEO of the Federation of American Hospitals.
Permission granted by Federation of American Hospitals
MacDonald said she plans to focus on “pragmatic, bipartisan solutions” to help the FAH’s hospital members.
Prior to joining the FAH in 2023, MacDonald led public policy and government affairs for CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield, a Blues licensee covering about 3 million people in the Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C. area.
Previously, MacDonald helmed healthcare and life sciences in the strategic communications segment of advisory firm FTI Consulting, and spent nearly a decade in policy positions in the Senate and House of Representatives — including as senior policy advisory to House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Md.
