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American non-profit consumer health-care advocacy organization. It was founded by attorney Ron Pollack, its executive director.

Pollack was Dean of Antioch School of Law, and argued cases involving food aid for low-income Americans before the Supreme Court.

In 1997, President Clinton appointed Pollack as the sole consumer representative on the Presidential Advisory Commission on Consumer Protection and Quality in the Health Care Industry, where he worked on the Patients’ Bill of Rights.

Familes USA is an influential health-care lobbyists in Washington, DC. They’ve taken positions on every major piece of health care legislation, most recently the Medicare Part D plan.

Families USA is a partner in the Campaign for Children’s Health Care, a multi-year campaign to raise awareness about the problem of uninsured children in America.

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Thursday, October 4, 2007
Families USA Refuses to Disclose Funding

Families USA, a long-time critic of pharmaceutical industry, recently joined a coalition calling on the pharmaceutical industry to disclose its contributions to educational and charitable organizations. (See press release).

Yet, curiously, despite these public calls for transparency, Families USA refuses to disclose its own sources of funding. It is nowhere to be found on its website. A call to Families USA to inquire and the development woman said that the organization only discloses to the IRS. (Most reputable non-profits usually disclose this sort of thing directly on their websites, including the posting of 990 forms.)

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Also connected to the Clinton’s:

President William Jefferson Clinton
Remarks as Delivered
For Families USA
January 23, 2003

Thank you very much for the warm welcome.

And, Ron, thank you for the reference to Hillary. You actually should have given her a bigger round of applause because, unlike me, she can still do something for you.

I am delighted to be here. Chris Jennings, who was my health care adviser in the White House, and several other people who worked with us are here today. And I see a lot of other old friends in the audience, some of whom I worked with in Arkansas over 20 years ago.

I can’t say how much gratitude I feel for the work that Families USA did with us, the information they gave to us, and the mistakes they kept us from making during the eight years I had the privilege to serve here in Washington.

Social change is hard work. In 1918, in a remarkable essay called “Politics as a Vocation,” the great German sociologist smart guy Max Weber said: “Politics is the long and slow boring of hard boards.”

Ron Pollack and the Families USA crowd have never forgotten that, never whined about it, never quit in the face of frustration and defeat. They just keep boring the hard boards. And I’m very, very grateful.

(APPLAUSE)

We can’t move backward. Cutting people off Medicaid is not only the wrong thing to do, it’s actually bad for the economy; it will spread all kinds of anxiety throughout this country. It will hurt people, it will hurt businesses, and it will hurt hospitals and health care workers. Families USA just released a report on the multiplier effect of cutbacks in Medicaid. Clearly, we should increase the federal contribution to Medicaid. It will save jobs and improve health care. We should do it without delay.

But we can’t do that, because they want to give me the money.

You know, I never made a nickel to my name until I left the White House, and I love being able to talk like this now.

(LAUGHTER)

(APPLAUSE)

And furthermore, as George Soros said the other day — God bless his soul, he and Bill Gates gave a big speech here in Washington against repealing the estate tax. George said, “Look, right now interest rates are low, even though we’re running deficits, because the economy’s down. When the economy picks up, interest rates will soar, and that will slow economic recovery in America.”

Bill Gates Sr. said something the other day that made me so proud I could pop. He said, I don’t understand why they keep trying to give me a tax cut. He said, “What do you think people like me would pay in advance just to be born in America? That ought to be worth something. Why do we think that we’re somehow entitled to be a permanent privileged class with no responsibility to the country that’s given us these opportunities?”

There was a cartoon the other day in the paper. I almost fell out of my chair laughing.

This kid is asking, “What did you do in the war on terror, Daddy?” And the daddy says, “Oh, I took a tax cut so that you could pay higher taxes when you grow up.”

(LAUGHTER)

We should be able to do this. There was enormous bipartisan support for the SCHIP program. It was part of the Balanced Budget Act of 1997. I’ve talked to a number of Republican members of Congress who are quite proud that they voted to create that program.

Again, I want to say the way Families USA has tried to reach out to people in every sector of our society who are giving care, who are paying for care, who are receiving care is important. I think this Covering the Uninsured Week you’re going to launch in the spring is very, very important. I hope all of you will participate in that.

Again, I want to acknowledge that it’s easy for me to give this speech now. I have no responsibilities. But at least you know I did try for eight years to fix this, and I was willing to pay quite a high political price for it.

(APPLAUSE)

http://tinyurl.com/23d9zk