I have long loved riding my bicycle -- for exercise, for fun, and for transportation -- and I'm a proud member of New York City's new bike-sharing program, Citi Bike NYC. The program allows users to borrow a bike from one location and return it to any of the hundreds...

The entire process of implementing the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has been filled with speculation and uncertainty from the start. First, there was the question of whether the law would even pass; once it did, it needed to survive the Supreme Court's consideration and the November election. But, now there...

I have a long garden full of random types of daylilies that I have purchased, borrowed from friends, traded for from neighbors, and once in a while "adopted" from uncared for flower beds here and there!

If you know lily gardens, you know that every four or five years,...

During my summer vacation, I had the chance to preview the documentary film Escape Fire, a Sundance selection that will open in theaters October 5th. Touted as "An Inconvenient Truth for health care," the film shines a spotlight on the entrenched challenges and failures of our nation's health...

On the morning the Supreme Court announced its ruling on the Affordable Care Act, my staff and I gathered around our computers, following CNN, the SCOTUSblog, the New York Times and Twitter simultaneously to track the decision.

As the initial reports started to roll in, there were a few...

Within the next two weeks, the Supreme Court's long-awaited ruling on the Affordable Care Act (ACA) will be announced. During these long months of speculation leading up to the decision, I've thought about what the range of possible outcomes of the case could mean for New York State's health system....

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...