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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 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.

A Note on How the War in Iran May Affect Health Care in the Midterms

In a new column, Dr. Drew Altman, KFF’s President and CEO, discusses the impact of the war in Iran and rising gas prices on voter concerns about health care costs. He writes: “Recently, we saw health care costs rise to the top of the public’s list of economic worries, ahead of food, housing, utility costs and the cost of gas….Expect gas prices to rise and health care costs to fall on the list of affordability worries while the war in Iran lasts, but then to return to the top or near the top when President Trump decides to declare the major hostilities over, the Strait of Hormuz is open, and gas prices come down….health care costs have staying power as one of the top voter concerns.”

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  • Making Sense of Medicaid Work Requirements

    From Drew Altman

    In this column, KFF President and CEO Drew Altman examines the data and history around adding work requirements to Medicaid and why the administrative burdens it imposes may offset any savings even for states that ideologically favor such an approach.

  • The Twin Problems of Mental Health Care: Access and Affordability

    From Drew Altman

    In this column, KFF President and CEO Drew Altman analyzes the serious access and affordability challenges facing people with mental health problems and suggests the issue could be one of a few candidates for bipartisan action in the next Congress.

  • Lessons From the Election About Voters and Health

    From Drew Altman

    In this column, KFF president and CEO Drew Altman explores why health costs weigh heavily among voters' economic concerns, even in an election where health was not a flashpoint. The need to reframe health as a pocketbook issue for voters will be central to the competition for the votes of working class Latino voters, two groups very focused on the cost of living.

  • The Role Health PLAYED in the Election

    From Drew Altman

    In his latest column, KFF President and CEO Drew Altman provides an early post-mortem on the role health played in the election, discussing the many ways it did play a role in the campaign — even if not a decisive one.

  • Health Policy is Partisan, But It’s Also Personal

    From Drew Altman

    In his latest column, KFF President and CEO Drew Altman explores how America's big health care programs — Medicaid, Medicare, and the Affordable Care Act (ACA) — provide popular benefits valued by Americans from across the political spectrum. As partisan debates move closer to legislation, people may focus more on their personal financial concerns.

  • Springfield, Ohio: How Candidates Amplify Misinformation

    From Drew Altman

    In his latest column, KFF President and CEO Drew Altman explains the impact of misinformation about immigrants, examining the challenges of correcting misinformation shared by candidates or potentially amplifying it.

  • Again, No Medicaid

    From Drew Altman

    In his latest column, KFF President and CEO Drew Altman explains why Medicaid, despite former President Donald Trump's silence on the topic, warrants greater attention given the potential for drastic changes or cuts to it should Republicans win control in the election.

  • Harris is Reframing Health as an Economic Issue

    From Drew Altman

    In his latest column, KFF President and CEO Drew Altman describes how Vice President Harris has reframed health as a pocketbook economic issue, which aligns with voters’ concern about health care costs.

  • The Collision of Medicaid World Views

    From Drew Altman

    In his latest column, KFF President and CEO Drew Altman writes about the fundamentally different world views of the Medicaid program by Republicans and Democrats and how those ideological divides have affected policy proposals, sometimes despite the program's popularity and broad reach.

  • The Role of Health Care in the New Presidential Election

    From Drew Altman

    In his latest column, KFF President and CEO Drew Altman describes the role of health care in the new presidential election with Vice President Harris facing former President Donald Trump. He discusses how health will likely be a consequential factor in the campaign, with abortion and reproductive rights, along with health care costs, taking center stage.