Nancy Hoyt Taff, M.P.H. | 2025 MHE Emerging Leaders in Healthcare

I grew up in Falcon Heights, Minnesota, next door to the University of Minnesota, St. Paul, campus and the Minnesota State Fair. I grew up in a household with a dedication to public service. My mother was a city administrator, and my father was a professor at the University of Minnesota Extension. I attended Macalester College, where I majored in political science and was captain of the swim team. After a year at AmeriCorps VISTA, I earned my Master of Public Health degree from the University of Minnesota. I worked in local county public health before working for the Minnesota Department of Human Services on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. From there, I started my career in Medicaid managed care at HealthPartners in 2012 and transitioned to UCare as Medicaid product manager in 2021.

Turning point in your career

I have always been privileged enough not to worry about where my next meal was coming from. While I was at AmeriCorps VISTA, I supervised a garden crew of high school-age youth from St. Paul, Minnesota. During our lunch breaks, the kids, who were from multiple different cultures, would often talk about the foods they liked to eat and cook with their families or at big events. They would talk about the tacos with lots of different toppings or the spring rolls they made with their families. While they spoke of these different and nutritious foods, I noticed that they were often eating only processed foods at lunch. I asked them why they were eating zebra cakes when they loved and knew how to make all these other types of foods. One girl replied, “Because that is what they have at the food shelf.”

It was in that moment that I realized that choosing to eat healthy wasn’t even an option for these kids. They had to eat what was available at the food shelf, which was often unhealthy. That sent me on a path to understanding our food system, the policies that impact what and how we eat, and question why people in one of the wealthiest nations in the world don’t have access to healthy food. This journey led me directly to pursue a career in public health and health policy.

Biggest day-to-day challenges

In the product departments of UCare, our role is to push our organization to be strategic and think of the next iteration. We are continually challenging our leadership and teams to do more or differently. Sometimes this means that teams are often asked to do more without additional resources or to reprioritize their work. This tug-and-pull between strategy and operations can be a challenge, but it often leads to innovative, cocreated solutions with more buy-in from all stakeholders.

Top priority

My top priority this year is to implement our multiyear Medicaid product road map. The road map lays out UCare’s strategic path to best serve our members, communities and, ultimately, the state of Minnesota. Our goal is to move the needle on programs that have a positive and significant impact on our members’ lives and health.

Change one thing about U.S. healthcare

Is completely restructuring how we do healthcare “one thing”? Because that is what we need. Just fixing a symptom will not make a substantive, long-term impact. We need innovative leaders who are willing to stand up, dig in and upend our current healthcare system. We need a system that is not designed for financial gain or penalizing people who are sick, but to improve the health of our communities.

Book or article that everyone working in healthcare should read

“Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health” by Marion Nestle. This book was formative early in my public health education, and I refer to it often in my career. While this book is not strictly a healthcare book, it is an excellent illustration of how industry, politics and economic policy impact our health. There is so much more than personal responsibility influencing the way we live, and yet we have an expectation that people should just make good choices and they will be healthy. As we say in public health, we need to go much further upstream to make a meaningful impact on our health.

Personal goal this year

Summer is my favorite time of year. I like to spend as much time as possible outside — gardening, running, enjoying my patio. With two young kids, we spend a lot of time chasing my daughter zipping around on her scooter and going to the playground. This summer, I’d like to go a little farther afield on a family adventure. We haven’t settled on a location, but it will definitely include swimming, scooting and beautiful scenery.