Feder holds a B.A. from Brandeis University in 1968 and received her Master's in 1970 and Ph.D. in 1977 from Harvard University in political science. She held positions at the Brookings Institution and at the Urban Institute, before joining Georgetown in 1984. as Co-Director of the Center for Health Policy Studies, Georgetown University School of Medicine. After a stint in the Clinton administration, she returned to Georgetown in 1995 as Research Professor of Public Policy, becoming Dean of the Institute in 1999. At Georgetown, she is codirector of the Georgetown University Long-term Care Financing, and senior advisor to the Kaiser Family Foundation’s . In addition to her membership in the Institute of Medicine, she is a member of the National Academy of Public Administration and the National Academy of Social Insurance and is past-President and board member of AcademyHealth and a Policy Council Member of the Academy of Public Policy and Management.
Insuring the Nation's Health: Market Competition, Catastrophic and Comprehensive Approaches,. Washington, D.C.: The Urban Institute, 1981.
National Health Insurance: Conflicting Goals and Policy Choices, ed. . Washington, D.C.: The Urban Institute, March 1980.
Financing Health Care for the Elderly: Medicare, Medicaid, and Private Health Insurance,. Washington, D.C.: The Urban Institute, 1979.
Medicare: The Politics of Federal Hospital Insurance, Lexington, MA: Heath, Washington, D.C. 1977.
;Other publications Feder is the author of 36 articles in peer-reviewed journals in medicine and public affairs, including several articles in JAMA and the New EnglandJournal of Medicine, over 10 chapters in academic and books, as well as less academic political publications.
Political career
Feder was staff director of the U.S. Bipartisan Commission on Comprehensive Health Care chaired by Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, which contributed to the health care debate before and during the Clinton administration in the 1990s. She served in that administration as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.
2006 House election
Incumbent Frank Wolf was expected to have an easy reelection in Northern Virginia's but Feder posed a surprisingly strong challenge. An October 10 poll by R.T. Strategies showed Judy Feder to be within 5% at 42% to Wolf's 47%. Late in the campaign, the DCCC added Va-10 to their target list due to Feder's strong campaign and prodigious fund-raising, bringing in a total of $1.6 million. The DCCC also sent her a late contribution of $75,000.00. Ultimately, Feder lost to Wolf, 57.25%-40.89%, but gave him the closest challenge he had faced in 24 years. The 10th district is notorious as a difficult district for challengers due to its reliance upon the expensive Washington, D.C. media market. This is evidenced by the fact that Wolf required multiple campaigns to win the seat.
2008 House election
In February 2008, CQ Politics rated Feder ninth nationally in terms of "U.S. House Candidates challenging incumbents of the opposite party who had the most cash-on-hand as of Dec. 31." She won the June 10 Democratic primary and faced Republican incumbent Frank Wolf in the November 4general election. Judy Feder lost the bid for election to Frank Wolf during the November 4 general elections 36% to 60%. With 190 of 194 precincts reporting she had 123,627 votes to Frank Wolf's 198,286 votes and Neraj Nigam's 7,353 votes. In a year when Democrats won the Presidential vote and the open Virginia Senate race, Judy Feder actually received a lower percentage of the vote than she had received in 2006.
