Families USA Unites Health Advocates, Sets Clear Mission at 30th Annual Health Action Conference

Last month, Families USA was proud to host more than 650 health care consumer advocates, policy analysts, academics, community organizers and more in Washington D.C. for our 30th annual Health Action Conference.

With new executive director Anthony Wright at the helm, Families USA and health advocates from Alaska to Florida and everywhere in between shared knowledge, found renewed inspiration and began to chart the path forward for America’s health care in 2025 and beyond.

Kicking off this year’s opening plenary was Congresswoman Sarah McBride of Delaware with a speech that brought the entire ballroom to its feet. As a former caregiver and a current patient, Representative McBride spoke about how her “life’s mission is to fully realize the human right to affordable quality health care for all.” Focusing in on the power of hope, she laid out the challenges ahead of us in contrast to the obstacles the country has faced in our past, showing that with perseverance and hope, we can overcome this fight just as we have throughout history.

Sessions and Workshops and Networking – Oh My!

The Congresswoman kicked off a conference packed with engaging speakers, informative workshops and endless opportunities to learn and grow. With so much at stake for our nation’s health care, we brought together national and state experts from the Georgia Budget & Policy Institute, The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and The Utah Health Policy Project to examine the current threats to Medicaid and inform federal legislative and administrative strategies to protect the program.

But Medicaid is not the only thing on the GOP chopping block. The fall of Roe brought an onslaught of attacks on access to abortion care, contraceptive care, gender-affirming care, and privacy. But we will not let these attacks go unchallenged. Since the Dobbs decision, we have seen advocates, policymakers and legislators use creative tactics to build cross-sector partnerships and establish protective policies in less than friendly states. This conference, we gathered leaders in the reproductive health and gender-affirming care fight from Planned Parenthood, rePROs Fight Back, The Fenway Institue and Power to Decide to walk us through their strategies to protect access over the next four years.

We did not stop there. With new challenges facing immigrant communities—threats of deportation, language barriers, public charge, privacy, and culturally responsive care— coming out of the White House every day, we brought in organizers from Health Access California, Make the Road NY and Every Texan to bring awareness to state and local efforts to protect and expand coverage, drawing on lessons from the first Trump administration. In these sessions and many more, we laid the groundwork to organize and mobilize with the same determination we’ve shown before.

Time to Get to Work!

After two days packed with workshops on everything from navigating AI in health care to how to use storytelling to fuel advocacy, we wrapped Health Action Conference 2025 with notebooks full of learnings to take back to our organizations, new friends and communities to expand our networks, and most importantly, a renewed motivation to stand up to the challenges ahead.

Over 30 years we have celebrated progress together. From gaining patient protections against unfair hospital bills, to coverage expansions, taking on prescription drug pricing policies, and working to pass, implement, improve and defend the ACA, our success was built on what we learned from one another, taking ideas and inspiration from the great work being done around the country. This year was no different. In our closing plenary, Our Fight for Health Justice, speaker April Verrett, President of SEIU, set the tone for the work ahead:

“I believe right now, at this very moment, is when we must put it all on the line. Because if not now, when? Let us dig in and let us give this fight every single thing that we got…not just to save Medicaid and lives, but to save the very soul of our nation.”

We hope that Health Action Conference 2025 provided you with more than just the information but also the inspiration for the fights ahead and a renewed recognition that health care is not a privilege for the few, but a right for us all. There is so much at stake, and we need every single voice in the fight to get focused, join together and forge the path forward for better health and health care for everyone in America.

Missed this year’s conference? Don’t worry, they are annual! Sign up for Health Action Network and follow us @FamiliesUSA on all platforms to stay tuned for more information on HAC 2026.