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From Drew Altman

Drew Altman is president and chief executive officer of KFF, a position he has held for more than 30 years since founding the modern-day KFF organization in the 1990s. He is a leading expert on national health policy issues and an innovator in health journalism and the nonprofit field.

View full bio | Read Dr. Altman's Beyond the Data columns

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President’s Message

“KFF is an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. We have three major program areas: KFF Policy; KFF Polling; and KFF Health News (formerly Kaiser Health News), which conducts specialized public health information campaigns. Learn more about the organization. 

What’s unique about KFF, however, can’t be found in any description of our programs because we’re more than a sum of our parts. KFF is a one-of-a-kind information organization. Not a policy research organization. Not a polling organization. And not a news organization. But rather, a unique combination of all three. That’s the vision behind KFF, and it's this combination that allows us to leverage our combined expertise and assets to play our national role on health policy.” Read more

Beyond the Data

In his “Beyond the Data” columns, Drew Altman discusses what the data, polls, and journalism produced by KFF mean for policy and for people.

Are Employer Health Costs Out of Control?   

In a new column, President and CEO Dr. Drew Altman dissects the conventional wisdom that employer health costs are “out of control.” He writes that “the story this year is not about out-of-control employer health costs—they were moderate—or of a collapsing employer-based insurance system, although it certainly has many problems, including being propped up by a $470 billion annual tax subsidy. Instead, the story this year seems to be a conspicuous shift of premium costs to workers despite a moderate overall premium increase.”

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  • How to Think About Higher Growth in Health-Care Spending

    From Drew Altman

    In this column for The Wall Street Journal's Think Tank, Drew Altman explains that just as we should not have expected historically low rates of health spending increases to continue, we should not dramatize a return to higher rates in coming years.

  • Medicare and Medicaid at 50 Years: Perspectives of Beneficiaries, Health Care Professionals and Institutions, and Policy Makers

    From Drew Altman

    In this article for the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), Drew Altman and former U.S. Senate Majority Leader William Frist examine the roles the Medicaid and Medicare play in the health system today from the perspectives of the public and beneficiaries, providers, and policymakers, and discusses the challenges they face in the future. The article is accompanied by an audio interview with Altman and Frist, who is a member of the Foundation’s board…

  • A Little-Noticed Win in Global HIV Treatment

    From Drew Altman

    This was published as a Wall Street Journal Think Tank column on Jul7 27, 2015. Many Americans are skeptical about foreign aid because they believe a large share of U.S. assistance is lost to corruption. When it comes to global health, as the chart above shows, 83% of Americans say corruption and misuse of funds is a barrier to improving health in developing nations, and 43% say it is the most important barrier. Corruption is a problem. World…

  • Will the Iran Debate Defuse Partisan Battles Over Obamacare?

    From Drew Altman

    In this column for The Wall Street Journal's Think Tank, Drew Altman discusses whether the debate about the Iran deal may bring a respite for the Affordable Care Act from politics as usual, and how long it might last.

  • Takeaways From Alaska’s Medicaid Expansion

    From Drew Altman

    In this column for The Wall Street Journal’s Think Tank, Drew Altman discusses the implications of the governor of Alaska’s decision to move ahead unilaterally with Medicaid expansion.

  • What a Break in the Obamacare Battles Could Bring

    From Drew Altman

    Following the Supreme Court’s King v. Burwell decision, the Affordable Care Act could use a break from the intense political heat, though it may not get a long one as the 2016 election season heats up and presidential candidates play to their bases on health care, writes Drew Altman in his latest column for The Wall Street Journal’s Think Tank.

  • Amid Merger Talk, a Look at Health Insurers’ Medicare Business

    From Drew Altman

    With recent news about possible health insurance company mergers, Drew Altman looks beyond the impact on Wall Street to how mergers could affect Medicare beneficiaries in this column for The Wall Street Journal's Think Tank.

  • A Gender Gap in Economic Security for Seniors

    From Drew Altman

    Following up on an earlier column for The Wall Street Journal's Think Tank on seniors and poverty, Drew Altman looks at why older women will be more at risk of economic insecurity than men in the future.

  • Facing the Fallout From a King v. Burwell Ruling

    From Drew Altman

    With a Supreme Court decision on King v. Burwell looming, this Drew Altman column for The Wall Street Journal’s Think Tank plays out the politics of a ruling for the two major parties.