Area(s) of Expertise: Medicaid; Medi-Cal; Substance Use Disorders; Mental Health; Essential Health Benefits; Health Reform; HIPAA; Medicaid in the Territories

Héctor Hernández-Delgado is the Director of the National Health Law Program’s Health Services Practice Area and leads NHeLP’s policy work around Medicaid and Marketplace benefits. In particular, Héctor’s policy work focuses on access to substance use disorders and mental health services for Medicaid beneficiaries and other low-income individuals, access to Essential Health Services in the Marketplace and Medicaid Alternative Benefit Plans, as well as HIPAA and confidentiality of medical records. His work involves advocacy efforts at the federal level and engaging with other advocates and policymakers in California and other states and territories seeking to improve access to services for low-income populations.

Héctor received his B.S. in Biology from the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras, and his J.D. and a Certificate in Health Law from the University of Maryland School of Law. Héctor also possesses a Master of Public Administration from the University of Southern California and a Master of Public Health from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, where he concentrated in Health Care Systems and Policy, and where he studied the inequalities of the health care system in his native Puerto Rico. Before joining NHeLP, Héctor worked as a Human Rights Intern at the UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) in Geneva, and as a Legal Clerk at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in San José, Costa Rica, where his worked focused on the intersection between health and human rights.

Héctor is an avid sports fan and enjoys attending baseball games at Dodger Stadium and at baseball parks across the country. He also considers himself a cinephile, and is particularly interested in classic noir neo-noir, sci-fi, and dystopian films and literature.