Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report Feature Highlights Recent Blog Entries

Main Category: IT / Internet / E-mail
Also Included In: Public Health;  Health Insurance / Medical Insurance
Article Date: 02 Jun 2008 - 10:00 PDT

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While mainstream news coverage is still a primary source of information for the latest in policy debates and the health care marketplace, online blogs have become a significant part of the media landscape, often presenting new perspectives on policy issues and drawing attention to under-reported topics. To provide complete coverage of health policy issues, the Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report offers readers a window into the world of blogs in a new roundup of health policy-related blog posts. "Blog Watch," published on Tuesdays and Fridays, tracks a wide range of blogs, providing a brief description and relevant links for highlighted posts.

Peter Suderman of the American Spectator Blog discusses a recent Center for American Progress Action Fund paper that argues presumptive Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain's (Ariz.) health care plan would increase overall insurance administrative costs. Suderman argues that the "real message" is that McCain's plan would promote health insurance plans that are less expensive. Peter Harbage of the Wonk Room Blog counters that "the plans McCain wants to promote cost less because they're worth less."

Congressional Budget Office Director Peter Orzsag discusses key points from a new brief on methods of splitting the projected increases in federal health programs into "excess cost growth" and demographic changes.

Yuval Levin of The Corner points to a National Review Online primer on Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama's (Ill.) health care plan.

Dave Nather of CQ's Beyond the Dome blogs about the implications of Obama's comments on Tuesday that "we need [health care legislation] by March or April."

Merrill Goozner of Gooz News discusses an article about prevention published in the Journal of the American Medical Association and revisits a New England Journal of Medicine perspective on the same issue.

The Health Affairs blog posted two commentaries by James Robinson and Tom Williams as part of a four part series of posts on trends in performance measurement and performance-based payment in health care.

Maggie Mahar of the Health Beat Blog in two posts discusses Ezekiel Emanuel's new health reform proposal, Health Care, Guaranteed. Emanuel is the director of the Clinical Bioethics Department at NIH.

Health Care For All's A Healthy Blog reports back from the most recent Massachusetts Commonwealth Health Insurance Connector hearing on regulations governing Commonwealth Care.

The Health Care Blog's Matthew Holt discusses a paper from Northwestern University and the National Bureau of Economic Research that finds evidence of health insurance companies raising premiums as big companies made more money. According to the study, these companies usually did not shop around for a better price.
Health Care Law Blog's Bob Coffield notes that Microsoft's HealthVault Be Well Fund, which assists academic and research health organizations in developing online health applications, has increased its funding.

Health Care Policy and Marketplace Review's Bob Laszewski discusses the progress of Massachusetts' health insurance law and what it means for Obama's health agenda.

Health Populi's Jane Sarasohn-Kahn reacts to the announcement that Divided We Fail has partnered with some Hollywood groups to draw greater attention to its message.

Insure Blog hosts the most recent edition of Health Wonk Review, a biweekly compendium of more than two dozen health policy, infrastructure, insurance, technology and managed care bloggers. A different participant's blog hosts each issue.

Joe Paduda of Managed Care Matters blogs that the debate over health care reform is overlooking a key reason employers provide health insurance: to increase employee productivity.

Joanne Kennen from the New America Foundation's New Health Dialogue Blog discusses Dr. Joanne Lynn's address at a bioethics event on ways to improve treatment for chronic disease.

Scott Hensley from the Wall Street Journal's Health Blog reports on a new study in PLoS Medicine that found health "journalists usually fail to discuss costs, the quality of the evidence, the existence of alternative options and the absolute magnitude of potential benefits and harms" when reporting on health care.

Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.kaisernetwork.org. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery at http://www.kaisernetwork.org/dailyreports/healthpolicy. The Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report is published for kaisernetwork.org, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.

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