![Weil Alan Aih24](https://aspenideasfestival.imgix.net/33869ed6-28e0-4e08-90a7-b7414c5ef8a6/Weil_Alan_AIH24.jpeg?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=min&fm=jpg&h=290&q=80&rect=0%2C180%2C1536%2C1536&w=290)
Alan Weil
Editor-in-Chief, Health Affairs
Alan Weil is editor-in-chief of Health Affairs. Weil also directs the Aspen Institute's Health Strategy Group. Previously, he was executive director of the National Academy for State Health Policy, an independent, non-partisan, non-profit research and policy organization; director of the Urban Institute's Assessing the New Federalism project; and held a cabinet position as executive director of the Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine and served on its Board on Health Care Services. Weil was appointed to the Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission, was a trustee of if, A Foundation for Radical Possibility, and served on the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured and the board of directors of the Essential Hospitals Institute.
Previously
![Is Healthcare Consolidation the Cure-All for Better Health?](https://aspenideasfestival.imgix.net/4d5a14b0-0d1a-4c14-b631-f3de15c3d119/53807354848_a398b27e7b_o.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=min&fm=jpg&h=225&q=80&rect=0%2C239%2C5552%2C3123&w=400)
Health systems are joining hands, swallowing up competitors, acquiring new practices, and growing bigger. Like it or fear it, a tidal wave of consolidation is rocking healthca...
![On the Docket: How the Courts Shape Our Health](https://aspenideasfestival.imgix.net/74d298fa-f1af-4eae-af1d-3dbabcde1ec8/53807853165_2e4e385b95_o.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=min&fm=jpg&h=225&q=80&rect=0%2C13%2C8256%2C4646&w=400)
The power of the judiciary to influence health made recent headlines when the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade and Alabama’s top court ruled that embryos created through...
![Private Equity Pushes into Healthcare](https://aspenideasfestival.imgix.net/e28069f1-7c33-443a-86aa-8f7ae2a0103a/52998158232_2fc1719ce0_o.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=min&fm=jpg&h=225&q=80&rect=0%2C0%2C3675%2C2066&w=400)
Private equity firms are using leveraged buyouts, venture capital, and other funding sources to acquire hospitals, clinical practices, nursing homes, and other health-related...
![In Search of Disease: Opportunities and Risks](https://aspenideasfestival.imgix.net/e0030bdc-628d-4df3-9e48-c98aacbbfaf9/52997983231_85ae1eb035_o.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=min&fm=jpg&h=225&q=80&rect=0%2C0%2C3936%2C2215&w=400)
Remarkable screening and diagnostic tools are being developed so that disease can be identified in its earliest stages, when it is most treatable, and disease subtypes can be...
![HHS Secretaries: Looking Ahead, Looking Back](https://aspenideasfestival.imgix.net/84b960c3-9b6c-44c4-85f0-0adee806bcd8/52167659907_fc69102e9f_o.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=min&fm=jpg&h=225&q=80&rect=0%2C0%2C6048%2C3395&w=400)
With an annual budget hovering at $1.8 trillion, the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is the second largest US federal agency, surpassed only by the Department...
![The US Health Care Agenda: Top Journalists Explore the Issues](https://aspenideasfestival.imgix.net/nullcb057699-6a28-4dd5-b32e-0b95f292752a/US-Health-Care-Agenda.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=min&fm=jpg&h=225&q=80&rect=0%2C0%2C1600%2C900&w=400)
Once again, health care is bubbling to the surface of public and policy conversations. The phrase “Medicare for All” is on everyone’s lips — in the halls of Congress, on the p...
![Is Immortality the Goal?](https://aspenideasfestival.imgix.net/nullffeb15d6-2573-49a8-a9e1-50dc1192e784/immortality-goal.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=min&fm=jpg&h=225&q=80&rect=176%2C0%2C1424%2C801&w=400)
Can aging be cured? Hypothesizing that damage to the body accumulates over time, in fairly random ways, researchers and venture capitalists are investigating the mechanisms in...
![Deep Dive: Artificial Intelligence on the Rise](https://aspenideasfestival.imgix.net/nulld0a22c73-f4ac-4d7f-afbf-87112758f0e8/48109188521_9fa853b48a_o.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=min&fm=jpg&h=225&q=80&rect=0%2C0%2C4000%2C2251&w=400)
Artificial intelligence is an increasingly valuable coin of the realm in medicine. It is already playing a role in disease diagnosis, drug development, surgery, maternal and c...
![Algorithms, Big Data, and Your Health](https://aspenideasfestival.imgix.net/44082fca-07d7-4491-8a15-4ec6740fd8cf/42086205065_8d0f07bf2c_o.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=min&fm=jpg&h=225&q=80&rect=0%2C0%2C3000%2C1688&w=400)
Artificial intelligence, which recognizes patterns in data, images, and sound, is poised to move from the laboratory to the clinic and may upend health delivery in the process...
![Carrot or Stick: How Do We Promote Healthy Eating?](https://aspenideasfestival.imgix.net/af0c9ed0-4315-4312-8320-64473eb4ea8e/29096630778_03e5a2d300_o.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=min&fm=jpg&h=225&q=80&rect=282%2C1075%2C7322%2C4122&w=400)
Federal funds could not be used to pay for sugar-sweetened beverages under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly called food stamps), if recommendation...
![Deep Dive: Drug Prices and Access to Medicine](https://aspenideasfestival.imgix.net/nullc0d7e07a-4eeb-41b8-97d8-1cac72dcbb1c/27621077330_7420a7234f_h.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=min&fm=jpg&h=225&q=80&rect=0%2C7%2C1600%2C900&w=400)
The average annual cost of cancer drugs in the US now exceeds $100,000 and the price of more than 200 generic drugs doubled from 2013 to 2014. That puts them far out of reach...