A shaky economy threatens to deepen political pain in the fiscal year that begins tomorrow. As a result, the size and shape of New York State’s massive health-care system carries especially huge stakes.
So Gov. David Paterson’s appointment of Jon R. Cohen — former chief medical officer and VP of the sprawling North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System — as his new $160,500 senior advisor, drew big interest in Nassau and beyond when announced late last week.
Some expected Cohen, 53, of Great Neck, to become health commissioner once Eliot Spitzer was elected, especially after the vascular surgeon served on his transition team. But Spitzer selected Richard Daines last year for that post — and kept on George Pataki appointee Dennis Whelan as his own deputy secretary for health care.
With these appointees still in place, it remains to be seen where Cohen — most recently a managing director at PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP — will fit on Paterson’s team. “His biggest problem could be that he’ll be part of a puzzle that has no missing pieces,” a government insider said.
In 2002 Cohen advised....
Dan Janison
H. Carl McCall, then Democratic candidate for governor. Three years later, Cohen burst on the wider public stage in an odd way — as a one-issue expert candidate for lieutenant governor. He raised hundreds of thousands of dollars, much of it from medical colleagues and health-care entities — before Spitzer passed up him, Nassau’s Thomas DiNapoli, and Leecia Eve, and picked Paterson for his running mate. Records show he's been returning the money to donors.
Cohen delivered a seconding speech for Paterson at the state Democratic convention. Paterson soon hired Cohen’s former campaign manager and staff chief Richard Schwabacher — first on his own campaign and later as $70,000-a-year communications and intergovernmental director in the lieutenant governor’s office.
Cohen has his detractors, but fans hail his mix of skills. Longtime New York City Democratic activist and adviser Robert Olivari said: “He knows the economics of the industry. He knows medicine, and he knows how to put it into a policy context people can understand.”
In a 2006 op-ed piece, Cohen challenged the “political bandwagon” that proclaimed, “Conquer Medicaid fraud.” “Instead of fraud,” he stated, “the focus should be to set Medicaid on a new path that improves care and decreases costs.” He was unavailable for comment Friday.