Home From Drew Altman

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

Photo of Drew Altman

President’s Message

“KFF is an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. We have four major program areas: KFF Policy; KFF Polling; KFF Health News (formerly Kaiser Health News); and KFF Social Impact Media, 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.

Why We Are Stuck with Prior Authorization Review

Why We Are Stuck with Prior Authorization Review

Prior authorization review frustrates patients and physicians, but we likely can’t just eliminate it. In his new column, President and CEO Dr. Drew Altman discusses why, and why the focus is now instead on “doing it smarter.” Altman writes: “A proposal to eliminate prior authorization altogether could be the single most tangible and popular health reform idea a candidate could make. But, in our fragmented health system, with no great way to control costs or limit unnecessary care, we seem to be stuck with prior authorization review…and most payers are now trying to ‘do prior authorization review smarter.’”

View All Beyond the Data Columns

View the Latest: From Drew Altman

Filter

List Grid

291 - 300 of 330 Results

  • The Truth About Those ‘Greedy’ Seniors

    From Drew Altman

    In The Wall Street Journal’s Think Tank, Drew Altman asks, "what’s your image of America’s seniors?" and provides some facts on the income and assets of Medicare enrollees.

  • How Much Political Coverage of the Health-Care Law Is Too Much?

    From Drew Altman

    This was published as a Wall Street Journal Think Tank column on June 5, 2014. With primaries underway and the midterms approaching, coverage of the Affordable Care Act will increasingly focus on politics. Many political reporters may take temporary control of the health-care beat during the leadup to November.

  • An Opportunity Amid the VA Problems

    From Drew Altman

    This was published as a Wall Street Journal Think Tank column on May 30, 2014.   Gen. Eric Shinseki resigned when it became clear that the problems in the VA health-care system were systemic, not one-off acts of a few bad apples.

  • Avoiding the Wrong Lessons From the VA and HealthCare.gov Problems

    From Drew Altman

    This was published as a Wall Street Journal Think Tank column on May 27, 2014. Problems with the launch of HealthCare.gov and with veterans hospitals allegedly concealing long waits for care feed a narrative that government doesn’t work. But many government programs, including Medicare and Social Security, work well.

  • The Next Big Health-Care Issue

    From Drew Altman

    Drew Altman, in The Wall Street Journal‘s Think Tank, writes that the next big concern for the Affordable Care Act (ACA) will be how much premiums increase in exchanges for 2015. He discusses the factors to focus on to put this issue in perspective when states report premium increases.

  • The Twin Goals of Health Insurance

    From Drew Altman

    Drew Altman, in The Wall Street Journal's Think Tank, examines a study finding Massachusetts' health reform saved lives in the context of health insurance's twin goal: better access to improve health and economic security.

  • The Health-Cost Problem Is Coming Back

    From Drew Altman

    Drew Altman, in The Wall Street Journal’s Think Tank, discusses how the conversation will soon shift back to health-care costs from health coverage, because they are rising more sharply again. And as the discussion turns back, he says that because there is no national agreement on a strategy to address increasing costs, current efforts in the public and private sector, however fragmented and uncoordinated, will need to step up their game.

  • What People Don’t Realize About the Affordable Care Act

    From Drew Altman

    Drew Altman, in The Wall Street Journal’s Think Tank, discusses what people don’t realize about the ACA: it is engineered for variation and it is up to Congress and the states to learn from that variation.