PennPIRG Staff

Laura Etherton is PennPIRG's Health Care Policy Analyst. In her role, she supports State PIRG directors and advocates across the country in their work to establish state-level pro-consumer policies to cut costs, improve care, and improve health. She also guides the organization’s work on health care and public health at the federal level. Following passage of the Affordable Care Act, Ms. Etherton co-authored the U.S. PIRG Education Fund report Delivering on the Promise:  A State Guide to the Next Steps for Health Care Reform, which outlined how states could implement and build upon the Act.

Previously, Ms. Etherton served as OSPIRG's health care advocate. There, she led the organization’s work to implement Oregon’s home-grown health reform law of 2009, which strengthened Oregon’s health insurance rate review system, launched efforts to create a state health insurance exchange and put in place a series of cost-containment efforts. She also developed and directed the organization’s Health Insurance Rate Watch Project to conduct in-depth analyses of health insurance companies’ filings to increase premium rates on individual and small business plans. Ms. Etherton is a graduate of Macalester College.