{"id":698274,"date":"2026-05-28T00:59:17","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T00:59:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/698274\/"},"modified":"2026-05-28T00:59:17","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T00:59:17","slug":"kffs-chief-executive-to-retire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/698274\/","title":{"rendered":"KFF\u2019s Chief Executive to Retire"},"content":{"rendered":"

Drew Altman, the founding president and chief executive of KFF, who helped shape the organization into one of the nation\u2019s most influential nonprofit health policy sources, told his staff on Wednesday that he would retire<\/a> at the end of the year.<\/p>\n

Dr. Altman, 75, has worked at KFF since 1990. It was formerly known as the Kaiser Family Foundation.<\/p>\n

He will be replaced by two senior KFF executives, Larry Levitt, 63, who will serve as chief executive, and Mollyann Brodie, 59, who will serve as president.<\/p>\n

Under Dr. Altman\u2019s tenure, KFF has become a primary supplier of information and data on many of the most fiercely debated topics in health care, including the Affordable Care Act, vaccines and gender-affirming care.<\/p>\n

While other organizations might shy away from controversial issues, \u201che put the foundation directly into the eye of the storm,\u201d said Gerry Rosberg, a former Columbia University senior administrator who was a former board director.<\/p>\n

What distinguishes KFF from many of its philanthropic peers is its decision to remain neutral on the health care issues it analyzes, Mr. Rosberg said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere never has been a KFF plan for reform or anything else,\u201d Dr. Altman said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe believe that our impact as an organization comes from the role we have decided to play as an honest purveyor of the best analysis and facts we can possibly produce,\u201d he said. \u201cWe really do stick to that.\u201d<\/p>\n

KFF receives no money from federal or state governments, corporations or industry groups. \u201cWe don\u2019t have stakeholders,\u201d Dr. Altman said. \u201cWe don\u2019t have allies.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now a public charity, based in San Francisco, KFF has an annual operating budget \u2014 at $76 million \u2014 that is funded mostly from its endowment and supplemented by foundations and one individual, MacKenzie Scott, the former wife of the Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. The organization employs about 250 people.<\/p>\n

KFF also regularly conducts public opinion polls on health care issues and operates an independent newsroom with a staff of about 120 people. All of the information it produces is available free of charge on its website.<\/p>\n

\u201cKFF is the most trusted and respected voice in health policy, in large part because of Drew Altman and his vision and leadership,\u201d said former Senator Olympia Snowe, a Maine Republican who is the chair of KFF\u2019s board of trustees, in a statement.<\/p>\n

Senator Snowe said the board had identified Mr. Levitt and Dr. Brodie as best suited to succeed Dr. Altman.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been at KFF nearly three decades each,\u201d Mr. Levitt said. \u201cWe\u2019ve been side by side with Drew building what KFF is now.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to stay laser-focused on our mission and our audiences,\u201d Dr. Brodie said.<\/p>\n

A former state health official from New Jersey, Dr. Altman took over the organization when it was a small family foundation created by the industrialist Henry J. Kaiser. He converted it into a public charity. In 2009, he added KFF Health News, the organization\u2019s newsroom.<\/p>\n

In 2023, the organization changed its name from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation to KFF, partly to avoid confusion with the large California health system, Kaiser Permanente.<\/p>\n

KFF is considered a reliable source of information at a time when there is so much division over health policy in the United States, and when much of the discussion can be colored by partisan views.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re in the fact-based information business when much of the world is not,\u201d Mr. Levitt said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Drew Altman, the founding president and chief executive of KFF, who helped shape the organization into one of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":698275,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[9661,254510,254512,49,48,254511,84,392,97548,254509,254515,254514,29564,165461,254513,45847,153142,994,73223],"class_list":["post-698274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-altman","tag-appointments-and-executive-changes","tag-brodie","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-drew-health-executive","tag-health","tag-healthcare","tag-kaiser-family-foundation","tag-kff-nonprofit","tag-larry-health-executive","tag-levitt","tag-mackenzie","tag-medicine-and-health","tag-mollyann","tag-philanthropy","tag-polls-and-public-opinion","tag-research","tag-scott"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/698274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=698274"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/698274\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/698275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=698274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=698274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=698274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}