Ron Pollack

Ron Pollack is the Founding Executive Director of Families USA, the national organization for health care consumers. Families USA’s mission is to achieve high-quality, affordable health coverage for everyone in the U.S.

Mr. Pollack has co-founded and led a variety of health policy-related initiatives. He founded the Campaign for Children’s Health Care, a consortium of more than 50 national organizations seeking to expand health coverage to America’s uninsured children.

He co-founded the Health Care Coverage for the Uninsured initiative, a process involving two dozen very ideologically diverse national organizations –- including the American Medical Association, America’s Health Insurance Plans, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Heritage Foundation, the American Hospital Association, AARP, the Catholic Health Association, two key pharmaceutical companies (Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson), the Blue Cross/Blue Shield Association, Families USA, and others- – that is expected to issue its recommendations about expanded health coverage, including a Kids First Initiative, in January 2007.

In 1997, Mr. Pollack was appointed the sole consumer representative on the Presidential Advisory Commission on Consumer Protection and Quality in the Health Care Industry. In that capacity, Mr. Pollack helped prepare the Patients’ Bill of Rights that has been enacted by many states across the nation.

Mr. Pollack is a frequent guest on a variety of television and radio programs, such as The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, NBC’s Today Show, ABC’s Good Morning America and Nightline, NPR’s All Things Considered and Morning Edition, The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer, and many others, and he is often quoted in such leading newspapers as The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and The Los Angeles Times.

Prior to his current position at Families USA, Mr. Pollack was the Dean of the Antioch University School of Law, the nationally noted law school for public interest lawyers.

Mr. Pollack was also the Founding Executive Director of the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC), the national leading organization seeking the elimination of domestic hunger. In that capacity, Mr. Pollack argued many cases in federal courts -– including two cases successfully argued on the same day in the U.S. Supreme Court -– to improve food aid to low-income Americans. One of Mr. Pollack’s successful lawsuits resulted in the creation of the Special Supplemental Food Program for Women, Infants and Children – the so-called “WIC Program” that provides high-nutrient foods for pregnant mothers and infants.