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Outlet profile

KFF

U.S. center-left

Owned byNo owner; KFF is an independent, tax-exempt public charity (endowed nonprofit). No shareholders, no parent company, and no individual or family holds a proprietary stake. It was founded in 1948 by industrialist Henry J. Kaiser but has been fully independent since 1991.
FundingPrimarily self-funded through an endowment of approximately $1.1 billion in investment assets. Roughly 30% of operating costs come from external philanthropic grants (e.g., the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation). KFF states it does not accept funding from the healthcare industry or political organizations.
On the administrationbroadly critical

Background

KFF was founded in Oakland, California, in 1948 by industrialist Henry J. Kaiser, the same city where Kaiser Permanente was headquartered. For decades it operated as a traditional grant-making foundation loosely connected to Kaiser's business empire, but by 1985 it had no ownership stake in any Kaiser company. In 1991, under new president and CEO Drew Altman, KFF completed a full restructuring: it became legally and financially independent from Kaiser Permanente and all Kaiser entities, retaining its endowment while pivoting from grant-making to producing health policy research, polling, and journalism. Around 2022, it dropped 'Kaiser Family Foundation' from its public branding and began operating simply as 'KFF,' in part to reduce persistent public confusion with Kaiser Permanente and Kaiser Industries. Its journalism arm, KFF Health News (formerly Kaiser Health News), syndicates investigative and explanatory health reporting to hundreds of news outlets. Media Bias/Fact Check rates KFF Health News as 'Left-Center' with a high factual accuracy record; AllSides has assigned a 'Center' rating but with low confidence. KFF has drawn occasional criticism — including from the Catholic Health Association in 2024 for what it called 'activist journalism' — but remains one of the most widely cited health policy sources among policymakers across the political spectrum.

Sources

  1. KFF (health policy organization) — Wikipedia
  2. About Us | KFF
  3. KFF's External Funding | KFF
  4. Making KFF Less Mysterious Again | KFF
  5. Who Owns the Kaiser Family Foundation? No One Does — LegalClarity
  6. Kaiser Health News – Bias and Credibility — Media Bias/Fact Check
  7. Kaiser Family Foundation Media Bias — AllSides
  8. Tracking Key HHS Public Health Policy Actions Under the Trump Administration | KFF
  9. Trump Has Quietly Throttled an Agency Devoted to the Safety of American Healthcare — KFF Health News
  10. CHA Responds to Biased KFF Health News Article

Profile compiled 2026-07-31; refreshed when ownership, funding, or the administration changes.

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