Cathy Schoen is an economic and senior scholar at the New York Academy of Medicine. Her research includes analysis and policy development to address health care costs, access and health system performance, with attention to populations vulnerable due to income, age or health status. From 2014 through 2016, she was the Executive Director of the Commonwealth Fund Council of Economic Advisors and Health Cost Initiative with a focus on sustaining slow growth in health care spending while improving access, quality of care and health outcomes. Until she retired in July 2014 she was senior vice president of The Commonwealth Fund for Policy and Research, where she was on the executive management team and led various initiatives, including:  Controlling Health Care Costs;  US state and local health system scorecards to compare, monitor and assess performance across the United States; international surveys to compare experiences of doctor and patients in the US with their counterparts in other high-income countries; and analysis of U.S. and international policy initiatives. As research director for the Fund’s Commission on a High Performance Health System from its inception in 2005 to its closing 2013, she developed policy options and a series of  “scorecards” designed to track and provide targets to improve health system performance. Prior to joining the Fund in 1995, Ms. Schoen taught health economics at the University of Massachusetts. In the 1970s, she was at the Brookings Institution and then staff to President Carter's health insurance task force, including oversight of Medicaid, access and health benefit design.  In the 1980s was research and policy director for the SEIU international union. She has authored numerous articles on health policy, insurance, and comparative national and international health system performance, and coauthored the book, Health and the War on Poverty. She holds an undergraduate degree in economics from Smith College and a graduate degree in economics from Boston College.