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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.

Americans May Be Smarter About Vaccines Than You Think

In a new column that analyzes recent KFF polling, Founding President and CEO Dr. Drew Altman concludes that only a sliver of the public hold definitive anti-science, anti-vaccine views, and are greatly outnumbered by the people who believe established science, with even more Americans stuck in a “muddled middle.” He writes, “when you see reports of social media engagement spiking about a health myth, don’t overreact. It’s more likely than not that it’s a relatively small group of Americans who already believe it talking to themselves, and they are vastly outnumbered by those who believe the science.”

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  • Medicaid Expansion in Red States

    From Drew Altman

    In this column for The Wall Street Journal’s Think Tank, Drew Altman explains that Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam's decision on Medicaid expansion via the Affordable Care Act is the latest sign of pragmatism slowly winning over ideology in red states.

  • Our Fragmented Approach to Health-Care Costs

    From Drew Altman

    In his latest column for The Wall Street Journal's Think Tank, Drew Altman discusses this week's Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services report on health spending and assesses the current effort to control health-care costs.

  • Poll: Ebola Was a Bigger Story Than the Midterms

    From Drew Altman

    For The Wall Street Journal’s Think Tank, Drew Altman discusses what the public was more concerned about in November: Ebola or the results of the midterm elections.

  • How 13 Million Americans Could Lose Insurance Subsidies

    From Drew Altman

    This was published as a Wall Street Journal Think Tank column on November 19, 2014. Kaiser Family Foundation calculations of how many Americans could lose subsidies in 2016 depending on the Supreme Court’s ruling in King v. Burwell. The Supreme Court is expected to rule next year on King v. Burwell, the lawsuit in which the federal government’s authority to provide financial assistance to people who buy insurance in federally operated insurance exchanges is being challenged under a…

  • What to Expect From the Next Congress on the ACA

    From Drew Altman

    In this column for The Wall Street Journal’s Think Tank, Drew Altman explains how Republican control of Congress will likely bring challenges to the Affordable Care Act in two flavors.

  • How the Midterms Factor Into Medicaid Expansion

    From Drew Altman

    In this column for The Wall Street Journal’s Think Tank, Drew Altman discusses how Democratic victories in several close gubernatorial races on Tuesday could revive efforts to expand Medicaid.

  • The Benefit of a Uniform Response to Ebola in the U.S.

    From Drew Altman

    In this column for The Wall Street Journal’s Think Tank, Drew Altman discusses the Christie, Cuomo rift with the federal government over Ebola public health measures and the need for uniform national policies to ease the public’s fears.

  • Poll: Obamacare Is Not a Big Issue With Midterm Voters

    From Drew Altman

    In this column for The Wall Street Journal’s Think Tank, Drew Altman analyzes recent polling data on the Affordable Care Act and discusses why it will not be a significant factor in next week’s midterm election.