James R. Tallon Jr., Who Steered Health Care Reforms, Dies at 82

James R. Tallon Jr., a health care policy expert who as a New York State legislator spurred efforts to expand coverage for the poor, particularly children, died on July 9 in Endicott, N.Y. He was 82.

His son Michael said he died, in a hospice not far from his hometown, Binghamton, from idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a scarring or inflammation of the lungs that is more common in smokers, although Mr. Tallon never smoked.

As chairman of the Assembly Health Committee from 1979 to 1987 and leader of the chamber’s Democratic majority from 1987 to 1993, Mr. Tallon was instrumental in striking bipartisan compromises that expanded Medicaid coverage for low-income New Yorkers, especially for children and for prenatal care; codified patient rights; curbed malpractice insurance rates; and subsidized AIDS research.

After 19 years in the Legislature, he served from 1993 to 2017 as president of the United Hospital Fund, a charitable foundation and research group that supports nonprofit hospitals. From 2007 to 2014, he was chairman of the Commonwealth Fund, which conducts research on health care issues.

Some of the policies he initiated in New York, in collaboration with Democratic as well as Republican governors and with a hearty assist from the hospital workers union, were embraced in Washington. Among them was the joint federal-state Children’s Health Insurance Program, which was modeled on Child Health Plus, New York’s program for subsidized health insurance for children, which was enacted in 1990.

Mr. Tallon accepted the United Hospital Fund presidency after turning down an offer from the Clinton administration to lead the Health Care Financing Administration, the division of the Department of Health and Human Services that regulates Medicare and Medicaid.