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Dr. Drew Altman, president and CEO of KFF, has long been passionate about creating an online resource for those interested in health policy. However, one of the biggest challenges he faced was defining what constitutes health policy. At KFF’s headquarters in San Francisco, they attempted to define it by creating a physical timeline of key events in the field, but not everyone could visit their offices to see it.
For KFF, health policy is all about government actions and public programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and the ACOA. They believe that people should come first when it comes to health policy, rather than institutions or health professionals. While others may have different definitions of health policy, KFF’s definition guides the content they produce.
With the goal of helping faculty and students, KFF has organized basic materials on relevant topics and plans to add more chapters over time as they continue to develop content based on their role as an independent source of analysis, polling, and journalism on national health issues. Feedback from users will also inform the addition of new chapters and updates to existing content.
Dr. Altman invites feedback on the resource and suggestions for improvement which can be sent to him at daltman101@kff.org. The “Health Policy 101” resource will be updated at least annually to reflect changes in data and circumstances.
