Justine Handelman is the Founder and President of Handelman Strategies, LLC, which is a government affairs and political strategy consultancy focused on key health policy issues before the federal government and states for major corporations and industries.   

Prior to founding Handelman Strategies, Justine served as the Senior Vice President of Policy and Advocacy for the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association (BCBSA), a national federation of 34 independent, community-based and locally operated Blue Cross and Blue Shield (BCBS) companies and the nation’s largest health insurer, collectively covering one-in-three of all Americans.

In this role, she oversaw BCBSA policy, lobbying, and public affairs activities and represented BCBSA and BCBS companies before the Administration, Congress, government agencies and other national associations.  Over the course of her career at BCBSA, Justine worked extensively on key health care legislation and regulations including the Medicare Modernization Act, the Affordable Care Act, legislation to prevent opioid abuse and address mental health parity, legislation to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, the No Surprises Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act, among others.    

Prior to joining BCBSA in 2001, Justine was the director of the Health Care Practice Group in the Government Relations Division of SmithBucklin. In this capacity, she was responsible for the day-to-day government relations activities for several non-profit professional medical specialty societies and healthcare organizations.  Prior to joining the Smith, Bucklin team, she served as a senior legislative associate of MARC Associates, Inc. 

Justine Handelman received her bachelor’s degree in political science from the Catholic University of America.