Mark Kissinger

Mark Kissinger has spent more than two decades working the technical and often invisible machinery of New York's health and long-term care system, and today he applies that experience as Senior Advisor to the New York State Assembly Health Committee, chaired by Assemblywoman Amy Paulin, where he has served since 2023.

Kissinger built that expertise across a string of state health agency roles. As Deputy Secretary in the Governor's Office from 2004 to 2005, he helped oversee the state's health and human services agencies and helped secure $1.5 billion in federal Medicaid waiver funding. He went on to lead the Home Care Association of New York State, then returned to government to establish and run the Department of Health's Office of Long Term Care, later directing its Division of Long Term Care through the move of 40,000 Medicaid recipients into managed care. As Special Advisor for Aging and Long Term Care from 2016 to 2020, he co-directed the Office of Health Systems Management during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, helping distribute more than 100,000 pieces of personal protective equipment to nursing homes and adult care facilities statewide.

In 2021, Kissinger founded K-Forward Consulting, advising national, state, and local health and long-term care organizations, before joining Paulin's staff. In that role, he has continued to shape the state's health care budget, a process he has worked for over 25 years, with a consistent focus on ensuring older and frail New Yorkers can access long-term care and remain safely at home. As one peer nominator put it, his legislative efforts "have helped countless older New Yorkers access the long-term care services they need to remain at home and live with dignity and independence." Colleagues describe his commitment to that mission, across administrations and now in the Legislature, as unmatched.