James Tallon

President, United Hospital Fund

James R. Tallon, Jr., is president of the United Hospital Fund of New York. He is recognized nationally for his leadership in health care policy. He serves as a member of the New York State Board of Regents, the constitutionally established supervisory body of all education and education-related activities in New York.

In addition, Mr. Tallon is chair of the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured and serves on the boards of the Alliance for Health Reform, The Commonwealth Fund, and the Institute of Medicine as a Profession. In 1998-99, Mr. Tallon led the planning process to establish the National Quality Forum. He is Chairman of The Commonwealth Fund, a former member of the board of the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, and has held visiting lecturer appointments at the Columbia University and Harvard University schools of public health.

Prior to joining the Fund in 1993, Mr. Tallon represented Binghamton and parts of Broome County in the New York State Assembly for 19 years, beginning in 1975. He chaired the health committee from 1979 to 1987 and was Majority Leader from 1987 to 1993. In September, 1999, Empire State Reports named him as one of 25 leaders whose work resulted in sweeping improvements in the lives of New Yorkers in the past 25 years.

Peter Newell

Senior Health Policy Analyst, United Hospital Fund

Mr. Newell served as the Executive Director of the New York State Assembly Committee on Insurance from 1992 to 2007; before that, ran the Assembly's Housing Committee. A long-time aide to Assembly member Pete Grannis, Newell is a former newspaper reporter and editor and a 1979 graduate of Notre Dame University.

Kosali Ilayperuma Simon, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor of Policy Analysis and Management, Cornell University

Dr. Simon is a Faculty Research Fellow of the National Bureau of Economic Research and a Research Associate of the Census Bureau. Dr. Simon’s primary field is health economics. Her research investigates the impact of state 'small-group' reforms, public health insurance expansions, and Medigap rate regulations on health insurance coverage, health, and labor market outcomes.

She has investigated the effect of unemployment, involuntary job loss, and minimum wage laws on health insurance. Dr. Simon’s main research focus is the economic effects of state and federal policies in private and public insurance markets. She also studies health and health insurance impacts of other social policies and determinants of health more broadly. She recently completed a study on the income elasticity of demand for prescription medications. Dr. Simon’s research has appeared in Health Services Research, Industrial Labor Relations Review, Inquiry, Journal of Health Economics, Journal of Human Resources, Journal of Public Economics, and Southern Journal of Economics. Kosali received her Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Maryland at College Park.

Olveen Carrasquillo, M.D., M.P.H.

Assistant Professor of Medicine, College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University

Dr. Simon's other positions at Columbia are: Assistant Professor of Health Policy and Management, Mailman School of Public Health, Principal Investigator; Director, Center for the Health of Urban Minorities; and Director, Community Liaison Core, Center for the Active Life of Minority Elders. Dr. Olveen Carrasquillo is a physician whose areas of research include minority health, health insurance, access to care, and managed care issues. His research has been published in a variety of journals including the New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of the American Medical Association, and American Journal of Public Health. Dr. Carrasquillo is a former Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Generalist Faculty Scholar and is currently the principal investigator and director of the Columbia Center for the Health of Urban Minorities. He is also the director of the Community Liaison core of the Columbia Center for the Active Life of Minority Elders and Director of the General Medicine Fellowship Program at Columbia.

Courtney Burke

Director, New York State Health Policy Center, Rockefeller Institute of Government

Courtney Burke serves as Director of the Rockefeller Institute’s newly established New York State Health Policy Research Center. In this capacity, she oversees all health policy research projects at the Institute and is the project director for the Institute’s current research on small group insurance markets. Ms. Burke previously worked for six years as the Senior Research Scientist in the health and Medicaid studies program at the Institute. Her research focuses primarily on health policy issues related to Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program including Medicaid and State budgets, Medicaid waivers, long-term care, and Medicaid enrollment. She also has written about nonprofit organizations' dependence on Medicaid funding and the effects of the State fiscal crises on nonprofits. Prior to joining the Institute, Ms. Burke worked at the New York State Department of Health and as a Senior Policy Analyst at the New York State Office of Advocate for Persons with Disabilities. She has an Master of Science degree in Health Policy and Management from the School of Public Health, University at Albany; and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science and Journalism from the University of Connecticut.

Paul Howard, Ph.D.

Senior Fellow, Center for Medical Progress and Managing Editor, Medical Progress Today, Manhattan Institute

Dr. Howard is the Managing Editor of Medical Progress Today, a web magazine that chronicles the connection among private sector investment and biomedical innovation, market-friendly public policies, and medical progress. He is also Deputy Director of the Center for Civic Innovation at the Manhattan Institute, where he reviews research and projects on urban issues.

Dr. Howard has written on a wide variety of medical policy issues, including medical malpractice, FDA reform, and Medicare policy initiatives. His columns have appeared in newspapers across the country, including the New York Post, TCS Daily, and National Review Online, and he is often quoted on health care issues.