J. Patrick Rooney
The passing of Pat Rooney reminds us just how much impact one individual can have on improving the lives of many millions with a commitment to reshaping state and national health care legislation.
Pat was a great man and a pioneer in the consumer driven health care movement.
His family-owned insurance firm, Golden Rule, was the first to offer commercially available medical savings accounts (MSAs). His legacy includes far-reaching legislative action on health care reform, giving more than 12 million people significant control of their health care dollars with consumer directed plans.
We are so sorry to hear of his passing. As an NCPA board member, Pat made incalculable contributions not only to our organization but to the cause of free market health care reforms that benefit all people. The world is a much better place for all of his efforts.
He was a true hero for the consumer driven health care movement.
Pat was also the father of the private school voucher movement. He started the very first private voucher program in Indianapolis. It workd so well the idea was copied again and again around the country.
See Greg Scandlen's tribute to Pat here.
The Wall Street Journal also makes note of some of Pat Rooney's many, many contributions. Read here.
As Ronald Reagan would say, “There you go again.” As Sarah Palin would say, “Lies, Damn LIES”
J Patrick Rooney was not the 1st to market tax-free MSAs because that was TIME Insurance, America’s oldest health insurance company and I wrote the 1st one 14 years ago this month. Slow poke Golden Rule didn’t hit the streets with their MSA program until December 1996, trust me, I know.
How many millions of dollars did Pat Rooney save by terminating all sick and injured children off his books (Golden Rule) when they reached a majority age and slammed into that term date that was staring them in the face? Oh, I forgot, you Dr. Goodman do that to your own employees’s children so you don’t care.
To bad you are not licensed and have to take the calls from parents, with tears in their eyes, who have had their children terminated with a serious illness like MS, like my own daughter. Of course my son has Crohn’s and I wish I had a computer print out of all the MS and Crohn’s children that Pat Rooney and Golden Rule terminated.
Terminating a sick child’s insurance is stressful. When my daughter becomes stressed it attacks her vision and her brain. I forget you don’t care.
If you did care you might mention that the 50 million children on the Government’s S-CHIP program over the last dozen years all have their health insurance TERMINATED on the 19th birthday – HAPPY BIRTHDAY FROM YOUR UNITED STATES FEDERAL GOVERNMENT POOR CHILDREN OF AMERICA WITH MEDICAL HISTORIES.
Golden Rule clients used to tell us that they had their premiums raised every quarter so they never paid the same amount twice.
Patrick Rooney put Golden Rule and In God We TRUST on the front of his plan – sounds like a slimy salesman SCAM to me.
J Patrick Rooney – may you rest in peace and I hope someone up there brings up your cancellation clause on children just so you could stuff a few extra million in your back pocket.
Don’t tell me J Patrick Rooney didn’t know he was saving money by cancelling sick children health insurance. Didn’t United Health Care give Rooney $500 Million for Golden Rule. Wasn’t Rooney on the board here? Is Rooney the one that taught you about health insurance John Goodman? You need a better trainer, that’s for sure.