NEW YORK CITY – Kaiser Family Foundation President Drew Altman, a renowned commentator and expert on health care, spoke to a group of high-level New York City insiders Thursday and said, “Health care is being defined now by affordability. It's been defined by the American people not as a health care problem but as a pocketbook issue. And the train that is leaving the station in the Congress is the 'economy train' and legislation related to that, so unless the issue is reframed as an economic issue, I think it will get pushed aside over the next several years."

Altman was interviewed by National Public Radio’s Robert Siegel at the Policy Breakfast Series hosted by Public Agenda and the Maxwell School of Syracuse University.

Altman asserted that one of the biggest obstacles to reforming the nation's troubled health care system is the rigid ideological divide across party lines. “In the past, the big obstacles in health care reform were special interest groups and finding money. In recent times, the biggest obstacle is the fundamental ideological divide which will still be there no matter who wins the presidency. In my view, there needs to be a centrist compromise, or there can be no deal at all.

The policy breakfast series is a private event for supporters of Public Agenda and the Maxwell School. Video of the event is at www.publicagenda.org/policybreakfast. A full transcript of the event will be posted to the site as soon as it becomes available.

Past Public Agenda/Maxwell School policy breakfasts have featured leaders such as Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Congressman Charles Rangel, Paul Begala, Counselor to the President in the Clinton Administration and CNN analyst, Former CIA Deputy Director, Bobby Inman, former Congressional Budget Office Director and current head economic policy advisor to the McCain campaign Douglas Holtz-Eakin. Transcripts and some multimedia are available for some of those past events on the Maxwell/Public Agenda breakfast series website.

PUBLIC AGENDA, www.publicagenda.org, is a nonprofit organization with a mission to strengthen our democracy’s capacity to tackle tough issues by ensuring that the public’s views are well represented in decision-making and that citizens have the best possible conditions and opportunities to engage in public life and help shape our common destiny. Founded in 1975 by former U.S. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance and Daniel Yankelovich, the social scientist and author, Public Agenda fulfills its mission with nonpartisan, in-depth opinion research and public issues analysis; the creation and dissemination of nonpartisan citizen issue guides; community-based public engagement initiatives; leadership briefings and dialogues; and communications in its many forms, from media partnerships to online engagement.

THE MAXWELL SCHOOL of Citizenship and public Affairs, founded in 1924, is the premier academic institution in the United States committed to scholarship, civic leadership, and education in public and international affairs. Maxwell is home to Syracuse University’s social science departments and to numerous nationally recognized multidisciplinary graduate programs in public policy, international studies, social policy and conflict resolution. Maxwell’s graduate program in public administration – the first of its kind – is ranked consistently the best in the nation.