Top 5 Things to Know About Aging in America: Insights for the Health Policy Community

Abby Cox is the Senior Director of Aging Policy at ADvancing States. In this capacity she leads the Association's training and technical assistance efforts for State Units on Aging (SUA) directors, conducts policy and legislative analyses and project manages multiple state consultation projects related to LTSS redesign. She previously served as Vice President of Business Development WellSky and as the Assistant Deputy Commissioner for the Georgia Division of Aging Services, where she directed all Older Americans Act programs as well as Adult Protective Services, Public Guardianship Office, and four state plans. Abby received her MSW and Gerontology Certificate from the University of Georgia and her B.A. from Sewanee University.

Tricia Neuman is senior vice president of KFF and executive director of its Program on Medicare Policy. She oversees KFF’s policy analysis and research pertaining to Medicare, and health coverage and care for aging Americans and people with disabilities. A widely cited Medicare policy expert, Dr. Neuman focuses on topics such as the health and economic security of older adults; the role of Medicare Advantage plans, Medicare and out-of-pocket spending trends; prescription drug costs, payment and delivery system reforms; and policy options to strengthen Medicare for the future. She has written numerous papers pertaining to Medicare, has been invited several times to present expert testimony before Congressional committees, and has appeared and been quoted as an independent expert by major national media outlets. Dr. Neuman was nominated by President Biden in 2022 to serve as a member of the Board of Trustees of the Medicare, Social Security, and Disability Insurance Trust Funds. Before joining KFF in 1995, Dr. Neuman served on the professional staff of the Ways and Means Subcommittee on Health in the U.S. House of Representatives and on the staff of the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging, working on health and long-term care issues. Dr. Neuman received a bachelor’s degree from Wesleyan University, a master’s in health finance and management from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, and a doctorate in health policy and management, also from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health.

Vallas joins the Academy as its Chief Executive Officer after spending nearly 8 years as a member of its Board of Directors, including four as Secretary. Most recently, she spent 2021-2023 as a senior fellow at The Century Foundation, where she founded the organization’s disability economic justice work and organized a bipartisan, cross-sector coalition in support of reforming Supplemental Security Income’s antiquated asset limits. She is also the founder of the Disability Economic Justice Collaborative, a first-of-its-kind project bringing together nearly 50 leading organizations across the policy/research and disability rights and justice communities to work collectively to bring a disability lens across economic and social policymaking in the U.S. Prior to TCF, she spent 2014-2018 helping to build and lead CAP’s anti-poverty work in a range of roles including as the program’s first policy director and later as its vice president—and during her time at CAP she originated the organization’s disability justice work as well as its criminal justice reform work. Over the years, Vallas has authored a wide range of policy reports and proposals on social insurance and public assistance, disability policy, and criminal justice/reentry policy—and strengthening Social Security, and especially its disability programs, have been long-time priorities especially close to her heart. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, on MSNBC, CNN, CNBC, C-SPAN, Fox News, PBS, NPR, as well as an array of other national and local media, and she has testified before Congress on numerous occasions. Forever a legal aid lawyer at heart, Vallas began her career spending several years representing low-income individuals and families as a legal aid attorney in the Aging and Disability Unit at Community Legal Services in Philadelphia, including as a Skadden Fellow, and later as a Borchard Fellow in Law & Aging. She also previously served as the deputy director of government affairs for the National Organization of Social Security Claimants’ Representatives (NOSSCR). She is also a past co-chair of the Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities Social Security Task Force. And in 2019, Vallas cofounded the Clean Slate Initiative, a national organization that supports states in taking up the “clean slate” model of automated criminal record-clearing that she developed in partnership with legal aid leaders in Pennsylvania, and which is now law in a dozen states across the U.S. She is also the host and creator of “Off-Kilter,” a nationally distributed radio show and podcast about poverty and inequality. Vallas was the inaugural recipient of the National Legal Aid and Defender Association’s New Leaders in Advocacy Award in 2012, was twice named to Forbes Magazine’s “30 Under 30” for Law and Policy, and to Emory University’s “40 Under 40.” She received her law degree in 2009 from the University of Virginia, where she was elected to the Order of the Coif and received the Margaret G. Hyde Award and the Mortimer Caplin Public Service Award. She graduated summa cum laude in 2002 from Emory University, where she received a bachelor’s degree in psychology and was elected to the Phi Beta Kappa Society. Vallas was elected to membership in the National Academy of Social Insurance in 2012. She was a member of the Academy’s Economic Security Study Panel that ran from 2019-2022 as well as its Older Workers Retirement Security Task Force that ran from 2021-2023. In her spare time, she works as a practicing astrologer. She lives in Charlottesville, Virginia with her husband and four rescue kitties.