It's hard to overstate the impact former United Hospital Fund President James R. Tallon Jr. made on New York's health care landscape during his more than four decades of extraordinary service.
Throughout his 19 years as an influential and effective legislator, 24 years expertly leading United Hospital Fund, and efforts in countless other roles, Jim channeled his exemplary abilities as an educator, communicator, and consensus-builder toward the persistent fight for an effective and equitable health care system accessible to all. He died on July 9, 2024.
“What Jim Tallon has meant to New York, New Yorkers, and health care is nothing short of legendary,” then-UHF chairman J. Barclay Collins II said of Jim in 2017 at Jim’s retirement tribute.
United Hospital Fund was lucky enough to have Jim at its helm from 1993 until his retirement in 2017. During those years, Jim provided a steady hand, along with a vision and voice, that brought new visibility to UHF’s role as a go-to source of objective information and health care leadership.
The shortlist of initiatives begun under his direction is telling: the Hospital Palliative Care Initiative, Families and Health Care Project, Aging in Place Initiative, New York eHealth Collaborative (one of a number of organizations that went on to an independent role), Medicaid Institute, Next Step in Care, and the Quality Institute; a partnership with Greater New York Hospital Association and some 90 area hospitals to improve quality of care and patient safety; the groundbreaking community-based Together on Diabetes project; acclaimed analyses that informed New York’s development of its health insurance exchange; and the forward-thinking Partnerships for Early Childhood Development.
A sought-after contributor to both national and local dialogue, Jim also served as chair of The Commonwealth Fund and the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured, on the boards of the Joint Commission, Alliance for Health Reform, Association for Health Services Research, and Institute on Medicine as a Profession, on the advisory board of the Jonas Center for Nursing Excellence, and as a member of the Prospective Payment Assessment Commission. He was a member, too, of the New York State Board of Regents, which is responsible for general supervision of all educational activities in the state.
Jim’s rare combination of intellect and empathy in each of these roles was honed during his 19 years in the New York State Assembly, eight of them as health committee chair and six as majority leader.
First elected in 1974, Jim came to politics as the executive director of NY-Penn, a health planning agency that drew together three New York and two Pennsylvania counties to rationalize hospital building and ensure care for the area’s underserved population.
His accomplishments in the legislature are far-reaching. With State Senator Tarky Lombardi, Jim spearheaded efforts to improve hospital reimbursement, expand eligibility for Medicaid prenatal and pediatric services, and foster home health services. Jim also won support for AIDS services, research, and education, transitional health coverage for laid-off workers, and malpractice insurance reforms. These efforts were just part of the reason Empire State Reports named him, in 1999, one of 25 leaders whose accomplishments had made “sweeping improvements” in New Yorkers’ lives over the previous 25 years.
But in a career marked by brilliance and reason, vision and achievement, what stood out to so many about Jim was his humanity. Imbuing every strategic decision, every new initiative at UHF, was Jim’s belief in the fundamental value of effective, equitable, universal health care, and the need to ensure that for the most vulnerable and underserved. His legacy will live in the real difference his wisdom, insight, generous spirit, and deep caring made in the lives of New Yorkers.
"Jim will be remembered well for his important voice in health policy, but also for his great personal integrity and deep commitment to the pursuit of better health and health care," said current UHF President and CEO Oxiris Barbot, MD. "He will be greatly missed."