James R. Knickman

Many of us have read or heard some grim news concerning U.S. servicemembers and veterans in recent months: the March massacre of 17 Afghani civilians by a U.S. Army sergeant, the skyrocketing suicide rates among soldiers. These news stories shock our consciousness, provoke outrage, and focus attention on military mental...

Ronald Reagan said that "status quo" is Latin for "the mess we're in." It feels like our country is stuck in a big mess right now, with Washington so polarized and so few people willing to reach across the aisle, to compromise, to give any ground at all. Politics is...

Shortly after the Affordable Care Act was passed nearly two years ago, I spent a lot of time talking to people about the key elements of the law, how it would not only expand health care coverage but also support changes to improve quality while keeping costs in check. When...

The influential Congressional Budget Office (CBO) recently issued a disheartening report showing that 10 Medicare demonstration projects designed to reduce health care costs were largely ineffective. The results were surely discouraging, but perhaps not entirely surprising.

The report looked at six demonstrations focused on disease management and care...

I'm always surprised that some people still buy into -- and perpetuate -- the myth that America has the greatest health system in the world. We spend so much money on health care, but those dollars have not translated to good health. Every patient and every health-care professional can cite...

Are the right people doing the right jobs when it comes to health care? With 1.2 million or more New Yorkers estimated to gain health insurance once health reform is implemented fully in 2014, a key challenge is how to define and differentiate the roles of doctors, nurses, and other...

There's been a lot of buzz lately about the increase in diabetes; new findings published in The Lancet show that, over the last three decades, the rate of diabetes has doubled worldwide and nearly tripled in the United States. Earlier research indicates that diabetes prevalence in New York...

This entry was co-authored by Jacqueline Martinez, Senior Program Director at the New York State Health Foundation.

Whatever shape our reactions to President Obama's May 1st announcement of the death of Osama bin Laden took, most contained a shared sense of relief. Nearly 10 years ago, New Yorkers...

I jumped on the iPhone bandwagon a few weeks ago, and I've mostly enjoyed figuring out how to take advantage of all of its features. One of the apps I discovered early on tracks the time and distance of my walk to the office in the morning and then posts...

As we mark Black History Month in February, I think about the progress that has been made to eliminate racial inequities, but also about the work that still needs to be done. When it comes to reducing disparities in health -- rates of diabetes, asthma, even premature death -- New...

Curbing Medicaid costs is one of the hottest topics being debated in New York's health policy circles these days as we await the recommendations of the statewide Medicaid Redesign Team.

Every health expert in New York State has looked for an easy solution to reducing state Medicaid costs quickly....

Although many will remember 2010 as the year of the iPad, Facebook, and WikiLeaks, perhaps most enduring over the next decade will be the progress we've made in New York State's--and the nation's--health care system.

Looking back, 2010 saw the passage of one of the most sweeping pieces of...

If ever a challenge vexes us in the public health world, it is how to take on the obesity epidemic. Obesity is the pathway to a wide range of health maladies we face, including heart disease, diabetes, kidney disease--and the economic malady of high health care costs.

I admit that...

Many of us who toil to improve our health system focus on shortages of primary care and underinvestment in prevention and public health initiatives as the core solutions to rising health costs and less-than-desired health outcomes among our population. For example, a report from Trust for America's Health found that...

While the current debate on health reform has focused on whether it is too much big government, too expensive, or too intrusive, a key challenge is how we will find the medically trained people to take care of our everyday health care needs. Finding people who focus on primary care--especially...

Diabetes treatments--from prescription drugs to new surgical procedures--have dominated health headlines this summer. Although it's encouraging to see so much media coverage of diabetes, little attention has been paid to the primary tool in the fight against it: prevention.

The fact is, diabetes has become an...

There's been some debate about new federal regulations designed to make it easier for veterans to receive disability benefits and medical care for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). From my point of view, eliminating some of the legwork and paperwork previously required to establish combat-related stressors leading to PTSD...

In this era of health care reform, many of us aspire to harvest the opportunities not only to expand coverage, but also to transform how care is delivered. We know that there are ways to produce better outcomes for patients and lower the escalating cost of care. For many health...

In the past few months, the Bloomberg Administration abandoned a controversial program that paid students to study harder and get better grades. The program was dropped because students who received the incentives did not perform better than students who did not.

Physicians seem to be more attuned to financial incentives--in...

Since Massachusetts passed legislation that resulted in near-universal coverage, the state's health care system has continued to struggle to provide universal access to timely primary care. With federal health reform, we will see similar challenges in New York.

Although the supply of primary care physicians throughout New York State has...