Timothy S. Jost is Robert L. Willett Family Professor of Law, emeritus, at

Washington and Lee University School of Law The Washington and Lee University School of Law (W&L Law) is the professional graduate law school of Washington and Lee University. It is a private American Bar Association-accredited law school located in Lexington in the Shenandoah Valley reg ...

. A top expert on American health law and policy, he is a co-author of ''Health Law'' (first edition 1987), a casebook that pioneered health law as a teaching and research field in American law schools. His analysis and arguments regarding the

Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act The Affordable Care Act (ACA), formally known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and colloquially known as Obamacare, is a landmark U.S. federal statute enacted by the 111th United States Congress and signed into law by Presi ...

(ACA, Obamacare) have been widely quoted.

Education and career

Jost graduated from

UC Santa Cruz The University of California, Santa Cruz (UC Santa Cruz or UCSC) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Cruz, California. It is one of the ten campuses in the University of California system. Located on Monterey Bay, on the edge of ...

in 1970, and received his J.D. from the

University of Chicago Law School The University of Chicago Law School is the law school of the University of Chicago, a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. It is consistently ranked among the best and most prestigious law schools in the world, and has many dist ...

in 1975. He began his legal career at the Legal Assistance Foundation of Chicago, where he used litigation and policy reform to improve health care for residents of Chicago's Uptown neighborhood. From 1981-2001 he was a professor at the

Ohio State University Moritz College of Law The Michael E. Moritz College of Law is the professional graduate law school of the Ohio State University, a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. Founded in 1891, the school is located in Drinko Hall on the main campus of the ...

, and from 2001-2014 he was Robert L. Willett Family Professor of Law at Washington and Lee. As a two-time

Fulbright Scholar The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States Cultural Exchange Programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people of ...

, he visited

Wolfson College, Oxford Wolfson College () is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Located in north Oxford along the River Cherwell, Wolfson is an all-graduate college with around sixty governing body fellows, in addition to both research and ...

in 1988-89 and the

University of Göttingen The University of Göttingen, officially the Georg August University of Göttingen, (german: Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, known informally as Georgia Augusta) is a public research university in the city of Göttingen, Germany. Founded ...

in 1996-97. He is the author or co-author of eleven books and over 150 articles, book chapters, and reviews. He was elected to the

National Academy of Medicine The National Academy of Medicine (NAM), formerly called the Institute of Medicine (IoM) until 2015, is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Medicine is a part of the National Academies of Sciences, En ...

in 2011.

Affordable Care Act

When the

Affordable Care Act The Affordable Care Act (ACA), formally known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and colloquially known as Obamacare, is a landmark U.S. federal statute enacted by the 111th United States Congress and signed into law by Presid ...

became law in March, 2010, it was the most consequential reform of the American health care system in over four decades. It was also an enormously complex piece of legislation, and one that faced immediate legal challenges. Beginning in 2009, Jost began contributing to a blog hosted by

Health Affairs ''Health Affairs'' is a monthly peer-reviewed public health journal, healthcare journal established in 1981 by John K. Iglehart; since 2014, the editor-in-chief is Alan Weil. It was described by ''The Washington Post'' as "the bible of health poli ...

, a leading health-policy journal, first following the course of the ACA through the legislative process and then explaining its provisions and associated regulations to academics, journalists, policymakers, lawyers, and other readers. Over eight years, Jost contributed over six hundred posts. Jost has also been widely quoted in the American media, including by

NPR National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other ...

, the

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

CNN CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by ...

, and other media. Jost also served as an advocate for the ACA in briefs presented to the Supreme Court during the cases

King v. Burwell ''King v. Burwell'', 576 U.S. 473 (2015), was a 6–3 decision by the Supreme Court of the United States interpreting provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA). The Court's decision upheld, as consistent with the statute, ...

, House v. Burwell, and California v. Texas. In the words of

Don Berwick Donald M. Berwick (born September 9, 1946) is a former Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). Prior to his work in the administration, he was President and Chief Executive Officer of the Institute for Healthcare Im ...

, Administrator of the

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), is a federal agency within the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that administers the Medicare program and works in partnership with state governments to administer M ...

under Barack Obama, "Tim Jost is to American health care policy what a GPS is to a dark and unfamiliar road; what Carl Sagan was to astronomy; what Barbara Tuchman was to history. He makes the potentially inaccessible accessible."

Personal life

Jost is a member of Community Mennonite Church, a

Mennonite Church USA The Mennonite Church USA (MC USA) is an Anabaptist Christian denomination in the United States. Although the organization is a recent 2002 merger of the Mennonite Church and the General Conference Mennonite Church, the body has roots in the Radi ...

congregation in Harrisonburg, Virginia. He is married to Ruth Stoltzfus Jost.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Jost, Timothy Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Washington and Lee University School of Law faculty Members of the National Academy of Medicine University of California, Santa Cruz alumni University of Chicago Law School alumni