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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.

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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.

BTD column on New Mexico

Doing More and Defying Labels in New Mexico

In a new column, Dr. Drew Altman, KFF’s Founding President and CEO, discusses how New Mexico made childcare universal and became the only state to fully replace lost enhanced ACA tax credits while its leaders avoided polarizing labels like “progressive or “socialist.”

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  • What’s Trending in Health Care? Conservative Ideas

    From Drew Altman

    In his latest column for The Wall Street Journal’s Think Tank, Drew Altman cuts through the political debate and reviews how some ideas conservatives like are taking hold in the American health system.

  • Why the Political Heat on the ACA Is Cooling

    From Drew Altman

    In his latest column for The Wall Street Journal’s Think Tank, Drew Altman explores some early indicators that the political waters may be calming for the Affordable Care Act.

  • What Women Think of the Core Issue in the Hobby Lobby Case

    From Drew Altman

    This was published as a Wall Street Journal Think Tank column on June 30, 2014. The Supreme Court decision upholding Hobby Lobby’s ability to refuse to cover certain contraceptive services based on its owners’ religious beliefs has set off a wave of analysis of what the decision means. That will not be resolved anytime soon. But we do know what women think of the policy issue at the core of the case. Overall, by a margin of…

  • On Medicaid Expansion, Red States Will Be Watching Red States

    From Drew Altman

    This was published as a Wall Street Journal Think Tank column on June 30, 2014. Since the Supreme Court made expanding Medicaid optional for states under the Affordable Care Act, 26 states have expanded Medicaid. Three of the 24 states that have not–Indiana, Utah and Pennsylvania–are considering expanding via federal waivers that they are negotiating with the Obama administration. In Virginia, the newly elected Democratic governor is looking for a way around opposition from the Republican-controlled legislature,…

  • Does the Affordable Care Act Cover the Uninsured?

    From Drew Altman

    Drew Altman, in The Wall Street Journal's Think Tank, discusses what a new Foundation survey finds about one of the biggest questions about the Affordable Care Act: whether it covers the uninsured.

  • 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. News organizations should consider: How much Affordable Care Act political coverage is too much? Already, the public says that coverage of the ACA is mostly about politics rather…

  • 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. No administration wants another problem, especially with veterans who have served our country and who matter politically, but crisis creates opportunity in politics and policy. There is a window of opportunity to assess what went wrong and put in place measures to…

  • What’s Driving the GOP Health Plan

    From Drew Altman

    This was published as a Wall Street Journal Think Tank column on May 30, 2014. Conservative House Republicans are pushing for a vote on a GOP health-care plan, presumably to appeal to their base, to give GOP candidates health reform ideas to talk about on the campaign trail and to show that they have a policy position beyond repealing the Affordable Care Act. Polling shows they have a ways to go. The Kaiser Family Foundation’s May tracking poll…

  • 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. And there are as many examples of corporate bungling–GM and its ignition switches, BP in the Gulf–as there are of government bungling. One impulse when government fails is to…