The independent source for health policy research, polling, and news.
For the third in his “Untold KFF History” series, KFF’s Founding President and CEO Dr. Drew Altman discusses an ambitious and relatively short-term effort, the Global Media AIDS Initiative, which was led by KFF in partnership with the United Nations and UNAIDS, and involved mounting HIV media campaigns all over the world from Russia to India, the Caribbean, Africa and more.
In the second of his “Untold KFF History” series, KFF’s Founding President and CEO Dr. Drew Altman discusses KFF’s first big foray into health news: Kaisernetwork.org, which was an online health policy resource and webcasting service called “HealthCast.”
In his “Beyond the Data” columns, Drew Altman discusses what the data, polls, and journalism produced by KFF mean for policy and for people.
In a new column that analyzes recent KFF polling, Founding President and CEO Dr. Drew Altman concludes that only a sliver of the public hold definitive anti-science, anti-vaccine views, and are greatly outnumbered by the people who believe established science, with even more Americans stuck in a “muddled middle.” He writes, “when you see reports of social media engagement spiking about a health myth, don’t overreact. It’s more likely than not that it’s a relatively small group of Americans who already believe it talking to themselves, and they are vastly outnumbered by those who believe the science.”
What do voters want to see most on health from candidates? A plan? That they feel their pain? In a new column, Dr. Drew Altman, Founding President and CEO, discusses findings from a new KFF poll and writes: “Voters say what matters most to them is to see candidates show some ‘fight’ by taking on drug and insurance companies they have come to see as villains.”
Dr. Drew Altman writes about the “conundrum of health policy ideas” facing Democrats searching for new proposals because of competing, and complex, priorities: rebuilding Medicaid and the ACA after trillion-dollar cuts, reconstructing federal health agencies, and tackling underlying health care costs, when candidates want simple ideas they can campaign on and voters want their costs to come down.
Dr. Drew Altman discusses how midterm political strategy will shape health policy in 2026, focusing on recent moves by President Trump. He writes: “Democrats start out with a significant advantage on health in the midterms, but rather than cut and run to other issues, Trump wants Republicans to try to erode that advantage where they can.”