Kaiser Family Foundation CEO Altman Discuses State Health Reform in Latest Essay

"Perspectives on State Health Reform," Kaiser Family Foundation: Drawing on personal experience in state and federal government and Foundation research, Kaiser Family Foundation President and CEO Drew Altman in the essay discusses the critical factors that influence state health reform efforts. The essay highlights the difficulty of achieving national health reform state-by-state, but Altman concludes that "a small number of pacesetting states can serve as laboratories for national health reform." Altman writes that "at the federal level, the biggest obstacle to action on health reform may well be the ideological and policy differences between left and right; at the state level it is money." The essay is the fourth installment in a new Foundation series, titled "Pulling It Together ... from Drew Altman" (Kaiser Family Foundation release, 6/11).