Tag Archives: foundations

Galewitz takes job with Kaiser Health News

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Phil Galewitz, a health writer at The Palm Beach Post, will join Kaiser Health News as a correspondent on June 15.

Galewitz

Galewitz

“I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to work with a team of highly talented and experienced health journalists,” Galewitz says.

Galewitz, a member of AHCJ’s board of directors, is editor of the organization’s newsletter, HealthBeat.

He joins fellow AHCJ board member Julie Appleby, who covers the health care industry, state and national efforts to change the U.S. health system, ways that consumers and employers try to deal with rising costs and other topics.

In 2004-05, Galewitz was a Kaiser Media Fellow and spent the year researching and writing about community solutions to the uninsured. He has been a national health writer with The Associated Press and worked a health writer for The Patriot-News in Harrisburg, Pa. He has contributed to several national magazines, including Self, Redbook and Glamour. Galewitz has won a number of awards for his work.

Kaiser Health News is a new, independent news service that will provide coverage of health policy issues. It is funded by the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation.

Pia Christensen (@AHCJ_Pia) is the managing editor/online services for AHCJ. She manages the content and development of healthjournalism.org, coordinates AHCJ's social media efforts and edits and manages production of association guides, programs and newsletters.

Appleby to report for Kaiser Health News

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After 10 years at USA Today, where she covers the health care industry for the business section, Julie Appleby has taken a position as senior correspondent for Kaiser Health News, a new, independent news service that will provide coverage of health policy issues.

The new service is funded by the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation. Stories produced by KHN will be provided free to newspapers around the country and will appear on a KHN Web site, which will go live later this spring.

Appleby

Appleby

Appleby, a member of AHCJ’s board of directors, will report on the health care industry, state and national efforts to change the U.S. health system, ways that consumers and employers try to deal with rising costs and other topics.

“More than ever, readers need insightful coverage of the complex and contentious debate over how to solve the quality, cost and access problems facing the U.S. health system,” Appleby says.

“I’m thrilled to join the team at KHN to help do just that. I believe that foundation-funded news organizations (ProPublica in New York is another example) hold great promise to help preserve quality journalism.”

Appleby joins an experienced team of journalists, including Laurie McGinley, formerly of The Wall Street Journal; Peggy Girshman and Mary Agnes Cary, both formerly of Congressional Quarterly; and John Fairhall, formerly of The Sun in Baltimore.

AHCJ reported on the formation of KHN and a project in California that is blending foundation support with experienced journalists. To read more about KHN and foundation-supported journalism, here’s a story from The New York Times.

Pia Christensen (@AHCJ_Pia) is the managing editor/online services for AHCJ. She manages the content and development of healthjournalism.org, coordinates AHCJ's social media efforts and edits and manages production of association guides, programs and newsletters.

Foundations’ role in health reform is changing

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Some philanthropic foundations and think tanks in California are frustrated that efforts to finance studies and projects have done little to improve medicine. So some are taking on a crusading role for health care reform in Sacramento, which is the state capitol, and Congress, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Breaking from more traditional practice, several have staffed offices in Sacramento and hired experienced former advisers to lawmakers in hopes of educating legislators. However, as the paper points out, this may be risky, since nonprofits are barred under Internal Revenue Service rules from lobbying or engaging in partisan politics.

Here’s one example: the California Endowment, a foundation based in Los Angeles with more than $3 billion in assets, has hired Daniel Zingale, a senior adviser to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, to encourage policies the endowment favors. Such as? Ensuring that all children have health coverage and making doctors and hospitals focus more on disease prevention and the management of chronic ailments, the Times tells us.

“We really consider ourselves to be supporting positive change and not just making grants,” Dr. Robert Ross, the endowment’s president, tells the paper. As for the California HealthCare Foundation, its Sacramento office employs a former legislative health expert to ensure the foundation’s research topics are relevant to legislative agendas.

“Our view is the legislature is not facing a shortage of recommendations but a shortage of reliable information,” Dr. Mark Smith, president of the foundation, tells the Times.

Sally Pipes, president of the Pacific Research Institute, a conservative think tank based in San Francisco, says foundations risk undermining the credibility of their research by wading into policy deliberations. “I think that’s a bad move for them, because I think they will be really tarred as lobbyists,” Pipes tells the paper. “I don’t think lobbyists have the respect of economists or researchers.”

What do you think? How far should foundations go in pushing for legislative change?