Ron Pollack is the Founding Executive Director of Families USA, the national organization for health care consumers. Families USA's numerous reports and analyses -- on such matters as health coverage for the uninsured and underinsured, Medicaid, Medicare, the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), prescription drug issues, long-term care, and others -- are frequently cited at Congressional hearings, in state legislatures, by the media, and by consumer organizations that Families USA works with all across the country.
Prior to his current position at Families USA, Mr. Pollack was the Dean of the Antioch School of Law.
Mr. Pollack was also the Founding Executive Director of the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC), a leading national organization focused on eliminating hunger in the U.S. In that capacity, he argued two successful cases on the same day in the U.S. Supreme Court to secure food aid for low-income Americans, and he brought the successful federal litigation that resulted in the creation of the WIC program for malnourished mothers and infants.
Senate Meets Pocketbook Test For America's families, the key assessment about health insurance reform will be a personal pocketbook test, namely: Will the legislation result in needed financial relief for families struggling to pay for health coverage and care? The newly announced Senate bill scores high marks on the personal pocketbook test-making health insurance much more affordable for hard-working middle-class American families. Through tax-credit subsidies made available for plans in a newly created marketplace, the Senate bill limits a family of four with income under about $88,000 a year from spending more than 9.8 percent of the family's budget on… Read more
The "Pocketbook Test" America's families cannot fathom the difference between $800 billion, $1 trillion, or some similar figure In Washington, much of the discussion about affordability focuses on the gross costs of health insurance reform to the federal government: Specifically, should the gross federal costs be limited to $800 billion over ten years, $900 billion, $1 trillion, or some other figure. (The net costs will actually be zero or less since the gross costs will be fully paid for through the elimination of health system waste and new revenues.) Around the country, however, America's families cannot fathom the difference between… Read more
We should make every effort to secure health coverage for all Americans. However, instead of playing a numbers game of what percentage of the American public needs to have health insurance for it to be considered universal health coverage, we should focus on the key measures that need to be taken by Congress to move us towards the universal goal. At least two sets of improvements to the pending bills should receive top-priority attention. First, we need to ensure that the Medicaid expansions for America's lowest-income people and families -- currently proposed under all pending bills to rise to 133 percent of the… Read more
Today's criticism by the insurance lobby gives hypocrisy a bad name. The insurance lobby now claims that health care reform will cause significant premium increases, conveniently forgetting that they imposed significant premium increases during the past decade that are making health coverage unaffordable for families and businesses. In the decade of 2000 to 2009, average family insurance premiums for employer-based health coverage increased from $6,772 to $13,073-an increase of 93 percent while median worker earnings rose by only 19 percent. As a result, premiums rose 4.9 times faster than earnings - even though those rising premiums purchased… Read more
The CBO score of the Senate Finance Committee's proposal augurs well for the passage of health care reform in the Senate -- even securing the 60 votes needed to stop a filibuster. The fact that the Senate Finance Committee's proposal reduces the deficit in the first ten years by $81 billion; that its cost is estimated to be $829 billion; and that it increases health coverage from 83 percent to 94 percent of legal residents will make the proposal very appealing to Senators as it is merged with the Senate HELP Committee's bill. This happy development offers new opportunities to strengthen the… Read more
The Medicaid expansion contained in the various health reform bills is a key and laudable component of expanding health care coverage. It makes abundant sense to establish a nationwide Medicaid eligibility floor of 133 percent of the federal poverty level – eligibility that would cover three-person families, as an example, with annual incomes below $24,352. Today, in half the states, parents in three-person households earning more than $12,268 a year are considered “too rich” to qualify for Medicaid. The proposed expansion will not only help the very low-income parents, but it will help their children as well: Expanding Medicaid… Read more
The challenge for the President tonight was to explain how health care reform would help America’s families and businesses. He succeeded in meeting this challenge and, as a result, the President substantially improved the likelihood that meaningful health care reform will be adopted this year. For the past weeks, the public has only heard about the myths of health care reform and about the most contentious policy issues. Tonight the President’s speech ascended above this confusing din. He explained how key health reform provisions – which are in all the bills, are not the subject of contentiousness, and yet are… Read more
We -- the nation, the world -- lost a good, gentle giant last night. Ted Kennedy was the finest, the most accomplished, legislator in our lifetime. Through his public service, he enriched the lives of countless people -- people who needed a passionate and compassionate voice in the seat of power. His strong, emphatic voice was often the clarion call that made possible historic advances in civil rights, equal education opportunities, removal of barriers for people with disabilities, judicial justice, workers' and retirees' rights, and, of course, it has led us to the cusp of decent, affordable health care for everyone. Ted… Read more
While it is critical that we make every effort to cover all Americans, it is also important to highlight how health care reform will help middle-class families who are insured. Middle-class insured Americans are already bearing a huge burden of out-of-pocket costs that are growing much faster than their incomes – leading to higher rates of medical debt and personal bankruptcies. Meaningful health care reform means more than covering the uninsured: It means making existing coverage more stable, more affordable, more secure, and less at the whim of an inadequately regulated insurance industry. For the insured middle class, health reform… Read more
Timeliness is critical to health care reform. We learned this in 1993-1994 when President Clinton's health care reform effort was delayed: It was initiated with his speech in September 1993 and the submission of his proposal in November 1993. By that time, the President had spent a significant amount of his political capital on votes applicable to NAFTA and balancing the budget as well as his "don't ask, don't tell" administrative solution for gays in the military. Although President Obama entered office with greater political capital because he received a majority of the presidential vote (unlike President Clinton's 43 percent plurality), no President's political… Read more
The final economic recovery package worked out by Senate and House conferees is by no means perfect, but it will help to address some of the health care problems that America's families have experienced due to the recession. One of the most significant and helpful measures in that legislation is the provision of $87 billion in additional matching funds to states for their Medicaid programs. As Families USA catalogued in two of our recent reports, many states have already cut back health coverage for low-income people and families -- some by reducing already-meager eligibility standards or implementing user-unfriendly enrollment systems… Read more
The professional naysayers about health care reform will no doubt seize upon Tom Daschle’s withdrawal as evidence that the opportunities for health reform have diminished. To be sure, Tom brought all the right credentials, commitment, energy, and connections to help promote health care reform. But Tom’s withdrawal will not significantly slow down the health reform effort. Success with health care reform rests with the President and the key committee chairs that have jurisdiction over health care: Senators Baucus and Kennedy as well as Representatives Waxman, Rangel, and Miller. All of them are deeply committed to achieving meaningful health care reform… Read more
It’s times like these that show us just how important our nation’s safety net is, and just how many holes are in it. As research tells us, and state experience is reinforcing, for every one percent increase in unemployment, the number of uninsured increases by 1.1 percent, and an additional 1 million people turn to Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) for assistance. For families with children, Medicaid and CHIP are critically important programs that provide access to good health care for children. But while children in most states can get Medicaid or CHIP if they live… Read more
The CHIP reauthorization obviously needs to be completed very soon due to the program's authorization expiration at the end of March. Largely for this reason, the Congressional leadership has made very few changes to the bills that passed over a year ago with broad bipartisan support but were vetoed by former President Bush The bill would extend the program's authorization for 4.5 years and is designed to add coverage for approximately 4.1 million uninsured children -- almost half of our nation's uninsured children. Altogether, the number of children who would be covered by either CHIP or Medicaid under the bill… Read more
The new unemployment numbers issued on January 9 show that more and more people are receiving pink slips, and a report released on the same day by Families USA makes clear why those pink slips are being accompanied with a loss of health insurance. The report compares average Unemployment Insurance (UI) benefits with average COBRA premiums. On average nationally, monthly UI benefits are $1,278 while average COBRA monthly premiums for family coverage are $1,069 -- or 83.6 percent of UI checks. For individual coverage, the average COBRA monthly premiums are $388 -- or 30.4 percent of UI checks. These numbers… Read more
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