Helen Halpin, professor of health policy

Helen Halpin is a professor of health policy. Her research focuses on health insurance policy, including health insurance benefit design, health care reform, access to care, consumer experiences in managed care, and disease prevention and health promotion. During Barack Obama's presidential campaign, Halpin served on his health care policy committee as an unpaid advisor to the Obama campaign. During that time, she presented to the campaign a framework for healthcare reform that she helped develop. The plan, called CHOICE, provides the option of a single-payer public plan, which operates alongside and competes with the existing system of private insurance, and is very similar to the hotly debated "public option" in Obama's health reform proposal.