Team

Miriam Harmatz, Executive Director

Miriam, one of Florida’s leading Medicaid advocates, is a former senior health law attorney at Florida Legal Services and adjunct professor in the Health Law Clinic at Florida International University College of Law.  As a young child with a health issue,   Miriam learned that everyone must have insurance and that  healthcare is  a human right.  She wrote her senior college thesis on why Congress failed to pass a national health insurance bill in 1974, and as a legal services attorney for 30 years she focused on ensuring access to healthcare for her clients.
Miriam has been lead counsel on multiple federal court cases resulting in statewide relief for Medicaid beneficiaries. These successful outcomes, including federal court cases of first impression and with national import, are the result of highly collaborative work with national experts, Florida legal aid lawyers and pro bono attorneys.  On a local level, Miriam led collaborative efforts that improved access and transparency at Miami-Dade County’s publicly funded hospital. This work includes administrative complaints successfully challenging outpatient and inpatient admission deposit policies, discrimination against foreign born county residents, and violations of consumer protections provided under the ACA,  the first complaint of its kind in the nation.

Because Florida has not yet expanded Medicaid under the ACA, Miriam has focused on outreach and education detailing the tremendous human and economic benefits of extending coverage and the adverse impacts in failing to do so.  And since the 2016 election, she has been part of the massive  advocacy effort  devoted to defending  the ACA and Medicaid.

Matt Childers,  Director of Research and Policy

Matt is a political scientist with expertise in political and social behavior, public opinion, survey research, government institutions, research design, and data analysis. He has over twelve years of experience conducting public opinion research on economic and health policy issues in national, state, and local elections.

His research has been published in leading political science and medical journals including Political Behavior, Political Research Quarterly, the American Journal of Preventive Medicine and the Journal of Affective Disorders.
Matt is available to work with partners on research and strategic efforts that will improve understanding of publicly funded health care programs, including Medicaid, Medicare, the ACA and CHIP and their impact in Florida.

Monica Skoko Rodriguez,  Public Health Director

​Monica is a Miami-native dedicated to the public health of the South Florida community.  She is a University of Miami trained nurse who has done minority health disparities research with the NIH, worked with the DOH in Title 1 schools in Miami-Dade County, and currently works to provide reproductive healthcare at Planned Parenthood.  Before nursing, Monica studied and worked in media at New York University and has a strong understanding of communications.
Monica is finishing her Masters in Public Health from Johns Hopkins University and is an expert on policy, public health programming and communications, and organizing strategy.  She has worked as a fellow on a congressional campaign and has lobbied extensively in Tallahassee and Washington D.C.  Monica is a generalist with varied public health interests, with content knowledge in climate change, reproductive health, and built environment.

Katy DeBriere, Legal Director

Katy, managing attorney of the Northeast Florida Medical Legal Partnership (NFMLP), is a highly regarded and committed health lawyer. Like Miriam, she has experience both in identifying and addressing systemic issues through impact litigation and in representing a large number of individual clients with Medicaid eligibility and services issues.

Katy began her legal career in 2008 as an Equal Justice Works fellow.  Her two year fellowship generated several state court of appeals successes, two 42 U.S.C. 1983 suits, and culminated in a successful facial constitutional challenge to a state statutory scheme for the commitment of persons with developmental disabilities.
Within a year of being hired to direct the NFMLP, Katy secured significant funding for the partnership-- the first time external funding has been obtained in the project’s 12-year history. Katy has taken a lead role in developing a statewide medical legal partnership (MLP) network and recently received funding to provide a series of webinars on public benefits programs available to low income Floridians, including the Medicaid program.

Brett Brumund

Brett, a recent graduate of University of Miami School of Law and the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, is a passionate and well-equipped advocate for health justice. Brett grew up in Hampton Roads, Virginia where his father worked as an epidemiologist and his youth was filled with stories of his dad’s public health work in the field, including work with migrant farm workers in some of Virginia’s most rural and economically depressed areas.

Brett has long understood the connection between health outcomes and the environment and how environmental challenges have a disparate health impact on low income communities.   These experiences inspired Brett to obtain both a law degree and a master’s degree in marine ecosystems and society.  His legal education provided Brett with basic advocacy tools and his masters in marine ecosystems and society informs his ability to explain how environmental issues impact health outcomes and the importance of ensuring health care access, particularly in light of Florida’s climate challenges.

Blanca Mesa,  Client Outreach and Communications Consultant

​Blanca is an attorney, journalist, and communication expert.  Blanca, a former Legal Services of Greater Miami public benefits attorney, also worked as the Communications Director for the Mayor of Miami-Dade County. 

After the ACA was implemented, she worked as a licensed federal navigator for the ACA health marketplace. She recently helped develop and manage a story bank of over 150 Floridians in the coverage gap willing to speak with the press.
​Blanca has a strong history of public service and community involvement. In 2016, she was named “Best Citizen” by Miami New Times and in 2017, Miami Today newspaper honored her as “Best of Miami” for her community environmental work. 

Blanca is available to work on documenting the stories of individual low income Floridians willing to engage on outreach and education regarding Medicaid, as well as other safety net programs that impact the social determinants of health.