Drew Altman is President and Chief Executive Officer of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. The Kaiser Family Foundation is a non-profit, private operating foundation. It develops and runs its own research and communications programs, often in partnership with outside organizations. The Foundation is not associated with Kaiser Permanente or Kaiser Industries. One of the nation's largest private foundations devoted to health, the Foundation is a trusted independent voice and source of research and information on health care in the United States, with a growing role in global health. The Foundation is based in Menlo Park, California, and also operates major facilities in Washington, D.C., including its Barbara Jordan Conference Center and broadcast studio. In late 1990, Dr. Altman came to the Foundation and directed a complete overhaul of its mission and operating style, leading to the Foundation's standing today as a leader in health policy and communications. Dr. Altman is a former Commissioner of the Department of Human Services for the state of New Jersey under Governor Tom Kean (1986-1989). Prior to joining the Foundation in 1990, Dr. Altman was director of the Health and Human Services program at the Pew Charitable Trusts. He was a vice president of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation from 1981 to 1986, and served in a senior position in the Health Care Financing Administration in the Carter administration. Dr. Altman received his BA from Brandeis University and Masters in political science from Brown University. He earned his Ph.D. in political science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, did his post-doctoral work at the Harvard School of Public Health, and taught at MIT before moving on to public service. Dr. Altman is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Council on Foreign Relations, and the Institute of Medicine, and serves on the governing Council of the Institute. He is an innovator in the world of foundations and a leading expert on national health policy who publishes and speaks widely on health issues.
Real-Life Affordability Debate Will Come Lately the health reform debate has been "all public option all the time". The ideologically oriented debate about the public option has diverted attention from the meat and potatoes consumer issues in health reform. There is no doubt that policies offered to people in the exchanges will be better than what they could get in the broken non-group insurance market. But, depending on how details of the legislation are resolved, questions are likely to be raised about whether policies will be affordable for people who now will be required to have them as a… Read more
The industry's report has already been criticized on substantive grounds by many respected experts (health policy now moves almost as fast as the news cycle). The industry's broadside is not at all surprising. Health reform debates have stages, and as we move out of the Finance Committee to the effort to forge single bills in the Senate and the House and then a final bill, we enter a different and decisive stage when all stakeholders in the debate can be expected to up the ante on behalf of their positions. The good news is that even though the debate will be intense, the focus,… Read more
The town meetings and the media coverage of the town meetings has diverted attention from the core issues in the health reform legislation still in question in the Congress and of concern to the American people. Even when the media is trying to act responsibly by fact checking and myth busting, its focus on controversial and often symbolic issues of concern primarily to activists on the right and the left creates unease and doubt about health reform among the greater American public and paints a picture of where the public stands that is at odds with what more scientific public… Read more
As Congress wraps up legislative business and departs for the August recess, the Kaiser Family Foundation has several key reports and other resources that can help the public and its elected representatives continue the conversation about national health care reform in their home states and districts. The documents explore a range of subjects, from data on health costs and coverage to explanations of basic concepts in health reform and the results of public opinion surveys. Key resources include: • An interactive side-by-side that compares the leading comprehensive reform proposals by the President and members of Congress across a number of… Read more
The decision to defer votes on health reform legislation in the House and the Senate until after the summer recess was hardly unexpected, but it creates a crucial window of opportunity to win (or lose) the fight for public opinion on health reform legislation. In past health reform debates dating back to the Truman era, public support has withered as debate intensified and critics scared the public that they have more to fear in health reform than to gain. This chart shows that pattern in the past: Circumstances are very different in this debate and the past pattern of eroding… Read more
Artificial deadlines may not matter, but timing and speed will matter a lot. Our polling shows strong public support for action on health reform despite the recession (because people are defining health now as an economic problem). But it also shows that many of the old vulnerabilities to Harry and Louise type attacks are still there and could erode support for most of the major elements of health reform now being discussed. After there is legislation on the table with details about how health reform will work and how it will be financed, proponents of action in the Congress should… Read more
As readers of this blog know, we do a lot of polling on health reform and health policy. We push our polling on policy options to the limit of what it is reasonable to ask the general public about, and in our regular tracking poll we also test out arguments likely to be made in a health reform debate by both sides, pro and con. There is no question that there are better and worse messages to use in talking about health reform and also that there are arguments that can be made to scare the public about health reform legislation. These… Read more
From Drew Altman and Tricia Neuman of the Kaiser Family Foundation Yes of course an insolvent Medicare trust fund would be a serious problem - if it were ever to happen. But Medicare is a hugely popular program, highly valued by seniors and the general public, and if the past predicts the future, policymakers will take action so the program will be able to fully fund benefits for the 45 million people who rely on the program for their health insurance, and future generations. As many will remember, back in 1997, the Trustees predicted the Medicare Part A Trust… Read more
Medicare's fiscal problems, exacerbated by the current economic situation, are serious but not hopeless. In addition to longer-term health system reforms, there is no shortage of proposals -- old and new -- to help strengthen Medicare's financial condition in the nearer term, including reductions in payments for providers and health plans, increases in payroll taxes and higher payments from wealthier seniors. The bad news, according to our polls, is that few options have widespread public support, other than those that produce modest savings. Given the popularity of Medicare, the high financial burden of health care on seniors, and the fairly urgent need… Read more
It is obviously better rather than worse that rates of increase in health care costs have moderated lately, as we have documented in our annual employer health cost survey and as CMS analysts just documented in their annual report on increases in health spending. Imagine what the level of concern about health spending and the affordability of health care would be if spending and the costs people pay were rising at the rates we have seen in the past? But the answer to Marilyn's question - should we breathe easier- is no. We have seen peaks and valleys in rates of increase in… Read more
It definitely looks like there will be a health care component of the stimulus package when the new Administration takes office, centered around federal Medicaid help for states hard hit by the recession and perhaps also an infusion of federal money for health IT which President elect Obama recently called a "two- for " - a way to create jobs and make a downpayment on health reform. There are several reasons why including this in a stimulus package could make sense. Compared to other options, funds directed to states are used and get into the economy very quickly. Federal relief… Read more
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