Dr. Stuart Altman, Sol C. Chaikin Professor of National Health Policy at The Heller School for Social Policy and Management, Brandeis University, is an economist with approximately five decades of experience working closely with issues of federal and state health policy within government, the private sector, and academia. He as demonstrated leadership in health care through service on numerous government advisory boards on both the federal and state levels, including service as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation/Health at the U.S. Department of Health Education and Welfare (HEW) from 1971 to 1976; as Chairman of the Prospective Payment Assessment Commission (ProPac) from 1984 to 1996; and in 1997 as an appointed member of the National Bipartisan Commission on the Future of Medicare. In total, Dr. Altman acted as advisor to five U.S. presidential administrations. In November 2012, Governor Deval Patrick appointed Dr. Altman to chair the board of the Health Policy Commission as part of Massachusetts’ implementation of a health care cost containment law passed earlier that year. Dr. Altman has also been recognized as a leader in the health care field by Health Affairs and by Modern Healthcare, which named him in 2006 among the 30 most influential people in health policy over the previous 30 years, and which from 2003 to 2011 named him one of the 100 most powerful people in health care. He has served on the Board of Directors of several for-profit and not-for-profit companies, and he is a member of The Institute of Medicine and chairs the Health Industry Forum at Brandeis University. He is the author of numerous journal articles and books, the most recent of which is Power, Politics and Universal Health Care: The Inside Story of a Century-Long Battle (2011). In addition to teaching at Brandeis, Dr. Altman has taught at Brown University and at the Graduate School of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley. He served as Dean of the Heller School from 1977 to 1993 and from 2005 to 2008. He also served as interim President of Brandeis University from 1990 to 1991.
Sol C. Chaikin Professor of National Health Policy, Heller School, Brandeis University; Chair, Health Policy Commission