After years of postponing the inevitable, the U.S. is finally on the verge of reforming our dysfunctional immigration policies. For millions of immigrant families who have committed themselves to building better lives for themselves and their communities, change cannot come too soon. And for the children in these families, their...

President Obama's 2014 budget proposal contains a lot of good news for children and families on the rough edges of America's struggling economy, putting real teeth behind his recent calls for creating ladders of opportunity and helping to level the playing field for millions of Americans wrestling with poverty.

The children of Newtown are back at school. The media storm over the tragedy is, not surprisingly, fading into the background as headlines now focus on budget crises and the politics of presidential appointments. Although the lives of the families in that once quiet Connecticut community have been irrevocably altered,...

There are some important lessons to be drawn from the extraordinary confluence of Hurricane Sandy blasting its way through the northeast, just as we get to the final days of one of the most contentious national political campaigns in memory.

Bush v. Gore in 2000 had plenty of drama,...

Although it's hard to believe, it wasn't just politicians and pundits of every conceivable stripe who waited with excited anticipation for the Supreme Court to announce its ruling on the Affordable Care Act. Just imagine what was at stake for ordinary citizens and families across the country.

Children in...

This post is part of a series on childhood poverty in the United States in partnership with Save the Children and Julianne Moore. Moore leads the organization's Valentine's Day campaign, through which cards are sold to support the fight against poverty. To learn more or to purchase the cards, click...

Co-authored by Dr. Sandro Galea, Gelman Professor and Chair of Epidemiology, Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health

The tenth anniversary of September 11 presents an opportunity to assess the progress made in the U.S. capacity to respond more effectively to a...

Improving the nation's state of readiness, response and recovery capacity has been a slow and painful process since the attacks of September 11, 2001. The establishment of an enormous new Cabinet-level Department of Homeland Security (DHS), along with major disaster response programs across the federal government, was nothing if not...

In a strange turn of events, a mind-numbing humanitarian crisis caused by this month's massive 9.0 earthquake, an enormous tsunami and hundreds of aftershocks has been nearly overshadowed by a growing crisis from damaged nuclear power plants along Japan's northeast coast.

Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of survivors -- men, women...

There is no denying that in this difficult budget climate, politicians are facing tough decisions. Astronomical budget and debt challenges have given many experts cause for serious concern regarding the stability of the U.S. economy. State and federal programs -- including many that affect children -- are being slashed to...

For nearly 50 years, Medicaid has served as a health care safety net for the poor, reducing the burden on families during periods of individual and national economic hardship. One in three children nationwide currently relies on health services provided through Medicaid.

Yet, in response to serious budget shortfalls...

In April 2009, Children's Health Fund (CHF) and its supporters, U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow and signer/songwriter Paul Simon, kicked off the Kids Can't Wait campaign - an effort to expand health care services to disadvantaged children and raise national awareness of health care access challenges facing America's children.

CHF...

Five years after Hurricane Katrina and the flooding of New Orleans, assessing the progress of recovery from this complex, massive disaster remains fraught with contradictions and conflicting conclusions. Random conversations with business owners, politicians, community leaders, and artists range from outright despair to unbridled optimism, and every nuanced perspective in...

The passage into law of the Patient Protection and Affordability Act presents a historic moment in the health care narrative of our country. But health reform, and the promise it holds, comes at a time of budgetary crisis in our country, states are facing growing, long-term deficits and a lack...

Today, at a White House summit on fiscal responsibility, President Obama made it clear that health care reform will remain at the top of his domestic policy agenda. But this wasn't his first move to repair some of the more grotesque flaws in the nation's dysfunctional "system" of medical care....

So at his last - and possibly most surreal - press conference as president, George W. Bush broached the delicate subject of his "handling" of the response to Hurricane Katrina, the now famous killer storm that devastated the Gulf coast and flooded much of New Orleans in September 2005.

Here's a top contender for the most egregious political strategy of the current campaign season: the ObamacCampaign is now circulating a mailer that resuscitates the images of "Harry and Louise," the notorious stars of a political ad that was part of a $300 million campaign by the health insurance industry...

It doesn't take a Nobel laureate to know that the national economy is in trouble. But what may be less clear is how much the nation's health care crisis both exacerbates and will, itself, be worsened by growing economic troubles. The leading two Democratic presidential candidates get this, but only...

The second anniversary of Hurricane Katrina's devastating impact on Mississippi and Louisiana was marked by the expected media flurry of solemn tributes, reminiscing, recriminations and painful expositions of "where are we now?" It was in this last category where we were treated to the now familiar images of the lower...