Brandeis professor traces efforts to reshape health care

When President Nixon wanted to overhaul the health care system to provide universal coverage, his administration turned to Stuart Altman. Ten years later, when Congress created a commission to improve the Medicare payment system, Altman led the effort. And, in the early '90s, when newly elected Bill Clinton assembled a team to guide his health care policies, Altman was among the first chosen. There may be no single person with a longer or deeper history in the health care overhaul efforts of the past 40 years than Altman, a professor of national health policy at Brandeis University in Waltham.