Justice Speaks: October 14, 2009
The Prognosis for Health Care Reform
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
12:50–1:50 p.m.
Room
W400
Jennifer Nicholson, Associate Program
Officer, The Commonwealth Fund
Jess Wisneski,
Legislative Director, Citizen Action New York
Moderated by
Peter Strauss, Professor, New York Law School
The second lunch in our autumn Justice Speaks Lunch Series will focus on the current debate surrounding health care reform. Speakers will discuss the policies being debated and the strategies being implemented in order to achieve reform.
Lunch will be served.
Please email jac@nyls.edu to RSVP.
About the Speakers:
Jennifer L. Nicholson, M.P.H., is associate program officer for the Affordable Health Insurance Program at The Commonwealth Fund. Ms. Nicholson reports to the program vice president, Dr. Sara Collins, and is an important part of the three-member team responsible for the Fund's Affordable Health Insurance Program. She is responsible for project development and grants management for the Affordable Health Insurance grants program, and is also involved in researching emerging policy issues regarding the extent and quality of health insurance coverage and access to care in the United States, researching and writing reports and articles, and survey development and analysis. She holds a B.S. in Public Health from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an M.P.H. in Epidemiology from Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health.
Jessica Wisneski is the Legislative Campaigns Director for Citizen Action of New York and the Public Policy and Education Fund of New York, a statewide, grassroots membership organization that has been fighting for social, economic and racial justice for over 25 years. Citizen Action of New York coordinates New York’s Health Care for America Now! organizing effort on federal reform. Since 2007, Jessica has chaired the Steering Committee of Health Care for All New York (HCFANY), a coalition of over 80 health advocacy, grassroots and union organizations fighting for health care for all on a state level. She earned her undergraduate degree in from University at Albany’s Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy. Her early organizing and lobbying training comes from New York Public Interest Research Group and she has done extensive professional organizing, coalition coordination and lobbying in both Hawaii and New York State. Jessica has directed the statewide campaign to pass a public financing of elections law (Clean Elections) in New York State for the past four years.
Peter J. Strauss is codirector and founder of the Law School's Elder Law Clinic, which provides representation to persons for whom a guardianship is sought and serves as court evaluator in guardianship proceedings. He also teaches the Elder Law course. He has been an adjunct professor at New York Law School since 1992 and was named distinguished practitioner in residence in the fall semester 2003. Professor Strauss is nationally recognized as one of the first attorneys in the country to focus in the field of elder law. His special expertise lies in the legal problems of the aging and persons with disabilities. He is a cofounder of the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys and the National Association of Professional Geriatric Care Managers. He is currently a partner in the law firm Epstein Becker & Green, P.C., where his practice area is personal planning and his areas of focus are elder law, guardianship, estate planning, and trusts and estates law.
