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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.

Trump Has No Health Plan, He Has the Art of the Health Care Deal

Trump Has No Health Plan, He Has the Art of the Health Care Deal

In his first column for the new year, KFF CEO Dr. Drew Altman analyzes President Trump’s “make a deal” approach to health care. He explains that while the president doesn’t have a health reform plan, or even “concepts of a plan,” or a replacement for the ACA, he does have a distinctive set of tactics that features one-off deals with the health care industry that are more like “health policy by transaction.” He writes that the deals “even do some good,” but “don’t change the long-term incentives of the health care companies that participate in the deals,” and a big question is “whether they have staying power.”

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  • Seeing Others Vaccinated May Be The Best Cure For Vaccine Hesitancy

    From Drew Altman

    In his latest Axios column, Drew Altman shows why vaccine hesitancy will naturally decrease as more and more people see their family members and friends vaccinated without adverse consequences. It’s a hopeful sign about vaccine hesitancy, and should help free up resources to focus on the remaining vaccine hesitant.

  • The Challenge Of Vaccine Hesitancy In Rural America

    From Drew Altman

    In his latest Axios column, Drew Altman looks at the challenge of vaccine hesitancy in rural America and its implications. One of them: a highly tailored outreach campaign is needed. “Addressing this hesitancy will require convincing rural Americans about the seriousness of the pandemic, and then that the vaccine is a way to protect them, their families and their way of life,” he said.

  • Joe Biden’s New Health Care Agenda (and CMS’s Big Role In It)

    From Drew Altman

    With the Georgia runoff elections giving Democrats control of the U.S. Senate, Drew Altman discusses President-elect Biden’s potential health care agenda and suggests that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services could have an expanded role and that it may be time to rename it and elevate it to a cabinet agency.

  • Joe Biden’s Big Lead on Health Care Issues

    From Drew Altman

    In an Axios column, Drew Altman discusses how this election year health isn’t a single issue -- but several -- and Joe Biden has the edge over President Trump on all of them, even as opposition to the ACA remains popular with Trump’s base.  

  • Black Americans Are More Skeptical of a Coronavirus Vaccine

    From Drew Altman

    Drew Altman discusses how systemic racism has led to striking levels of reluctance to get a COVID-19 vaccine among Black Americans, including those at highest risk, and the challenge it presents for ending the pandemic.