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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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  • The Mystery of How Many People Are on Medicaid

    From Drew Altman

    In a new column, Dr. Drew Altman, KFF's President and CEO, examines the different counts of the number of people on Medicaid that are currently in use, which range from 69 to 83 million, and why it might matter. He also discusses other ways to assess the reach of the program: “possibly it’s useful to explain why there are different numbers out there about what seemingly is an all-time simple question: how many people are…

  • Making the Marketplaces Great Again?

    From Drew Altman

    In his latest column, President and CEO Drew Altman discusses how, with nearly half, or about 10 million MAGA supporters and Republicans receiving coverage through the ACA Marketplaces, the policy changes and cuts being considered by Republicans to the Marketplaces will directly affect their own voters. Altman writes: "Republicans are no longer interested in repealing the ACA but seem comfortable shrinking it significantly if they can, so long as they don’t touch protections for pre-existing…

  • The Spotlight Is on Medicaid Cuts, But the ACA Marketplaces Could See a One-Third Cut in Enrollment

    From Drew Altman

    In his latest column, President and CEO Drew Altman shows how proposals contained in the House reconciliation bill could result in a one-third reduction in ACA Marketplace enrollment. “While all eyes are on the big Medicaid cuts being proposed in the House,” he writes, “significant changes are also being proposed that together would dramatically reduce enrollment in the ACA Marketplaces.”

  • On Medicaid Expansion, History Matters

    From Drew Altman

    In his latest column, KFF President and CEO Drew Altman discusses the history of the battles over the ACA’s provisions that were designed to expand coverage for the uninsured, which helps explain the effort to cut federal funding for the Medicaid expansion today. The real underlying issues, he says, are the same divisions that have always plagued the debate about covering the uninsured.

  • The Sad State of Trust in the CDC and FDA

    From Drew Altman

    In his latest column, KFF’s President and CEO Drew Altman discusses how the low levels of trust in the CDC and FDA today seen in KFF’s recent survey findings present a danger should the country face another epidemic.

  • The Debate About Enhanced Premium Tax Credits Begins to Emerge (Finally)

    From Drew Altman

    In his latest column, president and CEO Drew Altman discusses why debate about extending the ACA enhanced tax credits set to expire this year has been slow to develop, and why it could matter to Republicans politically if the tax credits are not extended.

  • Decoding the HHS Reorganization

    From Drew Altman

    In his latest column, KFF President and CEO Drew Altman examines the implications of Secretary Kennedy’s reorganization of HHS and why it’s a sharp break from past efforts to reorganize the department.

  • Why Most States Will Not Replace Federal Medicaid Cuts

    From Drew Altman

    In his latest Beyond the Data column, KFF’s President and CEO Drew Altman discusses how difficult it will be for states to replace lost federal Medicaid funding should Congress make significant cuts.